020 7898 0500With the first round of the 2017 French presidential election a mere ten days away, uncertainty in the Eurozone is set to rise. Of the 11 candidates who will contest the first round of voting on 23rd April, it was initially felt that only two – Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron – had any chance of securing victory. Polls had suggested that one in four people were expected to vote for far-right Le Pen.
The far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has experienced a sudden surge in the ratings, which has only increased uncertainty. That Melenchon also has anti-establishment and anti-EU views will do nothing to build confidence in the Eurozone and/or the euro.
While the euro has recently been driven more by action elsewhere, such as Donald Trump’s latest interview with the Wall Street Journal and the better-than-expected employment data in the UK, the fact that the second round of the French election doesn’t take place until 7th May suggests that the Eurozone alone may give the single currency plenty of reasons to move up as well as down.
