Actually, the upcoming elections aren’t quite as clear cut as that.
There are a number of candidates presented as being on the left by the various media, but most are largely irrelevant this time (a couple of extreme left representatives who actually don’t want power, and the greens who are largely disqualified). And then there’s the media’s candidate (Macron) who is a banker, was part of Hollande’s government for a while and is anything but on the left (he spelled it out clearly). There’s one like that every other presidentials and they usually get 2-5% (but it might be important and I’ll come back to it).
What mostly remains are Melenchon and whoever wins the PS (so-called socialist party) primaries. The thing is, things have been carefully set up to give the current prime minister (Valls) to win said primaries. That’s where things get interesting: if he does win the primaries, he will first and foremost eat up votes from the right and center right rather than the left. Macron’s couple of percentage points will most likely come from the same pool.
In other words, all the prediction that the second round will be Fillon/Lepen hinge upon the idea of an unified right and a divided left when in reality, Fillon being a true right representative means he will lose the votes from more moderate people.
Not quite as clear cut as many present those elections to be. The situation is actually very close to brexit and the US presidentials: it probably isn’t a good idea to believe the forecast of the same people who have already been wrong many times already.
