PARIS — France’s center-right presidential candidates are bracing for more doom and gloom ahead of another tense day of protests Saturday, as polls suggest the combined effect of massive marches and the connected violence is fueling their rivals on both ends of the political spectrum.

Five polls, including one commissioned by POLITICO, conducted in the aftermath of the unrest in France on Oct. 17 — when hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets while violence and looting broke out across the country — have all shown the same thing: The potential successors from President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition would be eliminated in the first round.

Both Marine Le Pen on the far right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far left have been able to capitalize on the movement: the former “by presenting herself as a candidate who guarantees law and order,” and the latter acting as a “hero and herald of protest,” said Gaël Sliman, the head of French polling firm Odoxa.

They are facing a divided field of mainstream candidates on the center and center-right, including two former prime ministers under Macron in Gabriel Attal and Edouard Philippe, and Bruno Retailleau, a former interior minister. These candidates have struggled to settle on a common message in response to the crisis — let alone agree on who the best candidate would be to avoid their nightmare scenario of a runoff between Mélenchon and Le Pen.

‘Out of ideas’

Three officials supporting centrist and conservative candidates told POLITICO that they were concerned the events of the past few weeks would cause lasting damage to their campaigns.

“It’s definitely going to kill us,” said one campaign official who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “We cannot be the solution anymore, only the problem.”

A Philippe supporter went as far as suggesting his champion was ill-equipped for the moment. “It’s exactly what he doesn’t need,” the supporter said last week, drawing parallels between the protests and the 2018–2019 Yellow Vest movement under Philippe’s premiership. “He doesn’t know how to do this. He’s not empathetic, and he’s not pretending to be.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how we’re going to get through this. Things are tough, and we’re out of ideas,” a centrist MP said.

The protests have taken place two Saturdays in a row and are expected to continue in the weeks to come. High school students are demanding better learning conditions while the wider public are protesting the cost-of-living crisis. The movement has been marred by scenes of vandalism and looting, especially on Oct. 17, when Macron’s government appeared to have underestimated both the scale of the protests and the potential for violent unrest.

In the following days, the government and center-right candidates focused on attacking Mélenchon and his party, France Unbowed, for fanning the flames that led to dramatic scenes of violence and looting. The strategy may have further dented his image among voters who already oppose him, polls suggest. But it did little to weaken his particularly young voter base.

“There is a kind of synergy between the social movement and France Unbowed,” a party strategist said. “This leads participants to see Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s impending victory as a logical conclusion.”

Le Pen, meanwhile, pushed her “protective vision” while her deputy Jordan Bardella said a far-right victory was “the only solution to allow the return of order and return of authority.”

As things stand, Le Pen is leading the race by a double-digit margin, while Mélenchon appears best placed to take second place and qualify for a runoff.

‘Muddled and hazardous’

Centrists and conservatives have been hindered by their persisting inability to agree on a single candidacy to take Macron’s mantle.

Attal, the candidate for Macron’s Renaissance party, made a surprise pitch for a “large primary of democrats” Wednesday, in a bid to narrow down the field of candidates against the far left and the far right.

Such a primary could see him face Philippe and Retailleau as well as David Lisnard, the mayor of Cannes running as an outsider on a conservative, small-state platform.

But Attal’s proposal was swiftly dismissed by rival campaigns. Laurent Marcangeli, who leads Philippe’s Horizons party in the National Assembly, called it “muddled and hazardous” Wednesday evening. “Without Philippe, there’s no primary,” a Retailleau backer said.

Despite these rebuffs, Attal on Thursday kept pushing for a contest to avoid the “cataclysm” of a Le Pen-Mélenchon runoff. “Our country wouldn’t recover from this,” he told public broadcaster France 5.

PARIS — Lawmakers in the French National Assembly will vote on a Socialist Party proposal to grant amnesty to an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 unauthorized immigrants employed in France.

The measure is expected to be supported by center-left presidential candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, whose campaign is eager to find some breathing space between centrist candidates like Gabriel Attal and Edouard Philippe, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, his rival on the radical left. Glucksmann has previously expressed support for such a step in multiple interviews.

The proposal, introduced by Socialist lawmaker Paul Christophle, hails Spain’s Pedro Sánchez for having “chosen to provide foreign nationals with the legal means to settle and work” instead of “trying — in vain — to control migration flows.”

Earlier this year, Spain moved to grant legal status to half a million unauthorized immigrants who could prove they had been living in Spain for at least five months, could provide proof of employment or a familial link to the country and did not have a criminal record.

Christophle wants to grant legal status to an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people who have been employed in France for over six months but without proper documentation.

The bill is likely to unite left-leaning MPs in the French National Assembly, but opposition from center-right and far-right groups means it will probably fail.

However, Glucksmann’s campaign hopes the proposal will highlight a rift between lawmakers backing French President Emmanuel Macron and voters who elected him in 2022 — some of whom are more progressive on issues like immigration.

The debate on immigration will be an effective way to differentiate Glucksmann from his center-right rival Édouard Philippe, who believes that amnesty plans should be contingent on a European agreement, said an official who is backing the center-left MEP. It might also help poach Macron voters “who are completely opposed to a closed society,” he added.

Among those who voted for Macron in 2022, 29% plan to vote for Raphaël Glucksmann next year, according to a Cluster17 poll commissioned by POLITICO, against 49% for Édouard Philippe.

Glucksmann is currently projected to receive 13% of the overall vote, according to the poll, against 16% for Philippe. They both trail far-right frontrunner Marine Le Pen (33%) and Mélenchon (18.5%). The top two candidates will advance to a runoff if no one wins a majority in the first round.

The bill is scheduled to be voted on Nov. 19.

PARIS — The first publicly available poll following the violence that rocked France over the weekend showed little change in voter intentions in next spring’s presidential election.

While even some of far-right front-runner Marine Le Pen’s adversaries expected her to get a boost from the rioting and looting that took place on the sidelines of peaceful protests on Saturday, the survey published by Ifop and Fiducial found little change in her support levels.

Nor was there much change in voting intentions toward far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whom the government has repeatedly blamed for stoking the violence. Mélenchon and his allies have repeatedly and forcefully denied the accusation.

The poll was conducted online from 8 p.m. Saturday — after rioting and looting had begun — until Monday.

Le Pen remains well ahead of the pack with 34% to 38% of the vote in the various scenarios tested. Given France’s presidential election moves to a two-person runoff if no candidate obtains a majority of votes on the first round, the battle for second place is shaping to be the most crucial story of the election.

That fight looks like it will be a tight one.

Mélenchon’s position remains similar to what it was before Saturday, despite the attempt by the government and his opponents to tie him to the unrest. The Ifop Fiducial survey has him either in sole possession of second place or tied for it in the various scenarios tested, though his lead on his nearest competitors — center-right former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and center-left MEP Raphaël Glucksmann — is in some cases within the margin of error.

“The first feedback we’ve had from the ground — including from areas where we’re not held in high regard — is that the tactic of blaming us for everything isn’t working,” said a high-level Mélenchon campaign operative, granted anonymity to discuss internal campaign analysis.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told broadcaster TF1 on Monday that she “absolutely [could] not confirm” the government’s analysis based on the profiles of those arrested and placed under investigation in the French capital so far.

The government, meanwhile, continues to fend off critics who allege that it has mismanaged the affair, which they are concerned could snowball into a sustained movement like the Yellow Vest demonstrations of 2018.

Calls for more protests this coming Saturday have emerged online, prompting Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to order what he called on Tuesday a “massive” police apparatus to avoid more scenes of vandalism, arson and mayhem. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said elite tactical police and a military unit normally deployed on French soil for counterterrorism operations would be mobilized as well.

After localized curfews were established throughout the country Monday, Lecornu said it would be up to local and regional authorities to renew them Tuesday night.