Poll puts Le Pen and Melenchon into French presidential runoff as center collapses

France's political extremes are pulling away from the pack as President Emmanuel Macron's era draws to a close, with a new poll showing Marine Le Pen and Jean Luc Melenchon headed for a runoff against each other.

The Toluna Harris Interactive survey, conducted October 5 to 8 and released Monday, puts Le Pen, leader of the far right National Rally, at 35 to 37 percent in the first round, up from 33 to 36 percent a month ago. Melenchon, the firebrand of the far left France Unbowed party, reaches the runoff in all five scenarios tested, after finishing third in two of five configurations last month. In a head to head second round, Le Pen is seen beating Melenchon comfortably.

The numbers describe a country whose political center has been hollowed out. Macron, deeply unpopular as his second and final five year term ends, leaves behind a weak economy and a centrist movement with no obvious heir. The opening has gone to the hardliners.

Melenchon has run for president three times, in 2012, 2017 and 2022, without ever reaching the second round. Le Pen has run the same three times and made the runoff in 2017 and 2022, losing to Macron both times.

The poll lands days after Socialist Party primary voters chose Raphael Glucksmann, the center left European Parliament member, as their standard bearer with about 66 percent of the vote. Glucksmann used his first interview Monday to call the coming campaign an existential battle against the far right and to urge the center left to shed what he called its spirit of defeat.

France's presidential election is set for 2027. The poll is a snapshot, not a result, but it confirms the direction of travel: the next president is increasingly likely to come from one of the two poles French politics spent decades trying to keep from power.