Before dawn broke over Paris, Emmanuel Macron was inspecting meat carcasses on hooks at a wholesale market. Rising early to talk about the “value of hard work” while watching butchers skinning calves’ heads is a classic campaign stop in any French presidential election. But this stop seemed more urgent than usual.



The independent centrist, who is running in his first election, had been seen as a frontrunner but faces a gruelling final few days before the first-round presidential vote this Sunday.

Styling himself as a pro-Europe progressive, he went from dark-horse outsider to favourite three months ago. But as polls narrow and a third of the electorate remains undecided, the race has become increasingly uncertain.

Macron’s supporters concede that the last few days of campaigning will be tough and unpredictable. Although polls have shown he could win a second round runoff on 7 May, Macron first has to make it to the final round – and that is not by any means guaranteed.

“The new president,” said one butcher as he posed for a selfie with Macron at the market. “He hasn’t won yet!” came the cry from the scrum of media recording the moment.

“You have to vote first,” Macron reminded him gently.

Macron, who served as the Socialist François Hollande’s economy minister before promising to “revolutionise” French politics by running for president, has been falling in the polls in recent weeks. The same is true for the other frontrunner, the far-right Front National’s Marine Le Pen, who had been roughly level with Macron at the front of the pack.

Macron displays a calm image of serenity, but I’m not sure that’s the case – he’s knotted up inside

It is normal for presidential frontrunners to dip in the polls in the final weeks of a French election campaign, but Macron and Le Pen’s slump has been accompanied by a concerted rise by the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the scandal-hit rightwing candidate François Fillon. The latter appears able to claw back voters who had turned their backs after allegations that he gave taxpayer-funded fake jobs to his wife and children.

Four candidates sit within the polls’ margin of error and the abstention rate could be higher than usual. There is no certainty about which two candidates will make it to the final round.

Last week, when Macron was photographed with his wife smiling down from a chairlift at a mountain resort in the south-west, it risked sending a message of haughty aloofness. He has decided to spend the remaining campaign days mixing in crowds, albeit carefully chosen, like the market workers who approve his promise to cut red tape and charges for employers.

Macron, surrounded by his supporters, celebrates after delivering a speech during a campaign rally at the Bercy Arena in Paris on Monday. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images

Macron’s vast Paris stadium rally on Monday, which attracted 20,000 people, was intended in part as a rallying call to the thousands of volunteers for his En Marche! (On the Move) movement, who will be holding scores of small local campaign meetings this week.

In a dig at Le Pen, Macron said voters had the choice of “hope and courage over resignation”. Polls show Macron mostly attracts people who feel optimistic about their future, despite the overwhelming sense of pessimism and anger in a country troubled by decades of mass unemployment and the ever-present threat of a terrorist attack.

But even at the euphoric rally in the capital, campaigners were aware of the daunting task. Dominique Dusart, 57, who heads En Marche! in Yonne, south of Paris, admitted some were worried his support could decline. “We’re a bit worried by Mélenchon’s breakthrough,” she told the Agence France-Presse news agency. “It has been a bit of a slap in the face because we weren’t expecting it.”

Macron’s electorate has always had a higher proportion of wavering voters than other leading candidates. His challenge this week is to highlight the novelties in his policy platform, and perhaps come up with new headline-grabbing measures.

You can sense Macron’s campaign is fragile

In an election campaign that has focused more on candidates’ personalities than any single topic, Macron’s “neither left nor right” manifesto has not seen any single measure boldly standing out. Canvassers pointed to his promise to cut local housing tax for 80% of people, or his plans to overhaul the system of unemployment benefits, or his loosening of rules and charges for businesses.

At a trestle table of Macron manifestos and a stand of balloons at a market in central Paris this weekend, an En Marche! campaigner tried to convince voters. Some asked about the dip in the polls. “Not long ago, everyone said it was impossible for Emmanuel Macron to get this far but we proved them wrong, and now we’re so close to the finish,” the canvasser urged one voter in his 40s who was undecided between voting Macron or returning to his “natural party” and choosing Fillon on the right. “I’m still not sure what Emmanuel Macron really stands for,” the voter said.

Macron supporters at the rally in Paris this week. About 20,000 people attended the event. Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA

“We’ve gone in a few days from ‘we can win’ to ‘we can lose’,” one MP in Macron’s circle was quoted telling Le Monde last week. “There’s a lot of tension. Macron displays a calm image of serenity, but I’m not sure that’s the case – he’s knotted up inside.”

Macron is not alone in facing an uncertain first round vote on this Sunday. “After the highs of a fortnight ago, you can sense Emmanuel Macron’s campaign is fragile, but perhaps not at the point where it’s going to shatter,” said Philippe Braud, an analyst at the Cevipof institute at the Sciences Po university in Paris.

Marie Imbert, a 27-year-old fan wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “Macron President”, told Agence France-Presse at the Paris rally on Monday that the narrowing polls were a warning against complacency in one of the most unpredictable elections in decades.

“It’s having a mobilising effect. It means we’ll have to be on the ground working until midnight on Friday night,” she said.