French people judge five candidates ahead of Republican vote – EXCLUSIVE SURVEY – Le HuffPost

RIGHT – During a final explanation to five this Tuesday evening on France2, the candidates shot down their last card to try to obtain the nomination of the Republicans for presidential 2022. The vote to decide between them during the Congress opens this Wednesday 1^er December at the end of a campaign which will have given birth to (almost) no hitch between the contenders, one of whom will join in a few days Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Yannick Jadot, Anne Hidalgo, Eric Zemmour or Marine Le Pen among the opponents declared to Emmanuel Macron.

This is the moment that The HuffPost chose to ask the YouGov institute to question the French about this internal election, the debates it sparked and the personalities it revealed. A Congress very right-handed (44% of respondents believe that the right is closer to the extreme right against 38% who do not think so) which interested about one in three voters (30% of respondents), according to this study.

At the time of judging Michel Barnier, Xavier Bertrand, Éric Ciotti, Philippe Juvin and Valérie Pécresse (in alphabetical order), the latter deliver a judgment without much surprise; at least like in recent weeks. They generally recognize a bonus for the president of the Hauts-de-France region, considered the most credible in terms of security and purchasing power. He is also on the heels of his counterpart from the Île-de-France region on ecology (even if no candidate is judged very favorably on this item) or the deputy for the Alpes-Maritimes on immigration.

Only Bertrand makes the match with Macron

But because the purpose of this internal election is to find the candidate who will try to bring down Emmanuel Macron, we asked our panel (all French people and no longer just those who said they were interested in the congress) to arbitrate the match with the current President of the Republic.

And in the same way that he is the one who obtains the best scores in the voting intentions in the first round, Xavier Bertrand appears in the eyes of the French as the only one able to make the match. 32% of those questioned think that the former Minister of Health would do better than the Head of State against 35% who believe that he would do less well. The other four candidates are won even if Valérie Pécresse is a little better placed than Michel Barnier or Eric Ciotti and Philippe Juvin.

Even among right-wing supporters who – it is logical – give more credit to nomination contestants, Xavier Bertrand obtains the best scores. Note, however, that in this part of the electorate, Valérie Pécresse and Michel Barnier are considered better than Emmanuel Macron. They are also the three who can count on first-rate ministerial experience.

Let us recall, however, to conclude, that the electorate is even more compact than the panel tested in this poll since only the militants of the Republicans party have the future of the five candidates in their hands. A first selection will take place by 2 p.m. tomorrow with the closing of the first round. If no one gets more than 50%, a second round will take place from Friday for a designation expected early Saturday afternoon.

Survey carried out from November 29 to 30, 2021 among 1,004 people representative of the national population aged 18 and over, using the quota method. In partnership with:

See also on The HuffPost: Valérie Pécresse has found a punchline that she emerges from all the debates