Macron Falls Behind Le Pen's Party in EU Poll

It was the first time Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN), formerly the National Front, overtook Macron's REM in an Ipsos survey ahead of the EU election this year, although other, daily polls have shown the RN in pole position before, Daily Sabah reported.

EU elections will be held on May 26 in France.

The poll of 1,500 people was conducted on May 2-3, after Macron announced a series of proposals, including tax cuts worth 5 billion euros ($5.6 billion), in a bid to appease the "Yellow Vest" anti-government protest movement.

Macron's REM party would obtain 21.5 percent of the vote, the Ipsos poll for France Television and Radio France showed.

On April 18-22, a total of 23 percent of the people polled said they would vote for REM, against 22 percent for RN.

The leaderless "Yellow Vest" movement sprang up in mid-November to oppose policies of Macron seen as favoring the rich. Macron last week tried to address the complaints of the Yellow Vest movement by announcing tax cuts for middle-class workers and an increase in pensions. But many Yellow Vest supporters consider the government's plans insufficient and want to keep the movement alive that started in November to oppose a fuel tax and quickly expanded into broad public rejections of Macron's economic policies.

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