Macron Hits 11 Percent Approval, Tying France's All-Time Low as Le Pen Surges
September 30, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A Verian Group poll puts Emmanuel Macron's approval at 11 percent, tying the worst figure ever recorded in France. Marine Le Pen leads 2027 presidential polling with 35 percent in the first round and a projected 69 percent against the hard-left in a head-to-head final.
Eleven percent. That is the share of French people who now approve of Emmanuel Macron, according to a Verian Group survey of 1,000 people published in the conservative daily Le Figaro, tying the lowest figure the firm has ever recorded. The same mark was set only once before, by François Hollande in late 2016, shortly before he announced he would not seek a second term. By the Verian measure, Macron and Hollande now share the record for the least popular French president since the early 1970s, when the pollster and its predecessors began conducting this monthly survey for Le Figaro.
The 11 percent figure is the sharpest reading, but every polling firm tells the same story. An Odoxa-Mascaret poll for Public Sénat, conducted before Macron's speech on rising fuel prices, put his approval at 18 percent, down seven points from the end of June. An Ipsos-BVA-Cesi survey conducted September 9 and 10 found 16 percent. An Elabe poll for Les Échos placed trust in Macron at 14 percent, a three-point drop in a single month and 13 points below where he stood in March 2025. A separate Ipsos poll cited by Politico put his rating at 19 percent. None of the four firms shows him above a fifth of the electorate.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is sinking alongside him. The Odoxa-Mascaret poll placed Lecornu at 24 percent, down eight points. The Ipsos-BVA-Cesi survey put him at 20 percent. Most corrosive is the collapse within Macron's own political family: support for the prime minister among backers of the Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons bloc dropped 14 percentage points to 64 percent, while Macron's own standing in that same camp fell 19 points to 53 percent, according to the Ipsos-BVA-Cesi data.
The fuel crisis is the immediate driver. The Odoxa-Mascaret poll found 75 percent of respondents consider the government's announced expansion of assistance for frequent long-distance drivers insufficient. Sixty-two percent say the government should allocate more resources to solve the problem, budget deficit or not. The Ipsos-BVA-Cesi survey found purchasing-power difficulties cited by 54 percent of respondents as their top concern, ahead of the future of the social security system at 40 percent and immigration at 31 percent. Three quarters of the country disagrees.
Lecornu announced on August 29 that he would not run for president in 2027, saying the government's focus was on state tasks rather than campaigning. The field that comment leaves open is already being measured. A Toluna Harris Interactive poll for RTL found National Rally consistently first in first-round voting intentions: Marine Le Pen at 34 percent, party president Jordan Bardella at 35 percent. An RTL poll of nearly 2,000 people conducted September 22 to 24 placed Le Pen at 35 to 36 percent across various first-round scenarios. Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise polls at 14 percent in the same surveys.
The second-round projections are more decisive still. The RTL poll found Le Pen would beat Mélenchon 69 percent to 31 percent in a head-to-head final. Against Édouard Philippe, the Horizons candidate polling between 15 and 16 percent in the first round, Le Pen leads 57 to 43. Both margins are larger than in previous comparable polls, according to rmx.news. The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for April 18, 2027, with the second round on May 2.
For comparison, POLITICO's Poll of Polls aggregator puts UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's approval slightly below 20 percent. A Forsa Institute poll for RTL and ntv put German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at a low of 25 percent. Both leaders are unpopular, but neither is fighting a fuel emergency on top of a collapsing domestic base, and neither faces a challenger scoring nearly 70 percent in a simulated run-off.
Macron's second and final term ends on May 14, 2027, twelve days after the second round. The polls suggest France stopped listening well before the ballot opens.
Published September 30, 2026 · Frisian News