Le Pen and Zemmour still haven’t got enough nominations
This closes at the end of the week
Marine Le Pen is still the second favourite in the French Presidential betting although the time is running out for her to get the required 500 nominations. Zemmour is in the same position. Nominations finally close on March 4th.
The challenge they both face is that only a very select group can nominate, mostly mayors, and the target of 500 has to include a geographical spread including some parts of France where they have very little support.
What at this election makes this process extremely hard is that nominators have to be named unlike in previous elections when they were allowed to remain anonymous.
Given the scale of support that Le Pen attracted last time, 10m+ votes in the second round, it would be extraordinary and raise questions about the democratic process itself if she was unable to take her candidature through to the first round. In the betting she and Macron are the two favourites to come top in the first round of voting. The two would then go through to the final round two weeks later.