The French far-right opened up a sizeable lead in the latest polls Thursday, leaving the country's political future up in the air just days ahead of the snap elections.
Depending on the result, President Emmanuel Macron could be left in a tense "cohabitation" with a prime minister from an opposing party or with a chamber unable to produce a stable majority for at least a year to govern the EU's second economy and top military power.
Surveys suggest voters will hand the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen over 35% in the first round Sunday, with a left alliance trailing on up to 29% and Macron's centrists in the dust at around 20%.
When he called the snap poll after a June 9 European election drubbing by the RN, Macron had hoped to present voters with a stark choice about whether to hand France to the far-right.
But the lightning three-week campaign "wasn't going to turn around the major trends," Brice Teinturier, deputy director of pollster Ipsos, told Le Monde daily, adding that the "RN bloc is incredibly powerful."
Even France's seasoned pollsters are struggling to translate that base level of support into a final result, as July 7's second-round run-off ballots – many expected to be three-way fights – can see voters shift allegiances and new alliances of convenience form.
Higher-than-usual turnout could also transform the vote.
Around two-thirds of eligible voters plan to cast their ballots, which would be the highest level since 1997.
By Thursday, polling firm Harris Interactive Toluna was predicting 250 to 305 seats out of 577 for the RN – putting an absolute majority in its grasp – while Ifop-Fiducial suggested the party could top out at 260.
Le Pen already was planning for an absolute majority and RN head of government, telling the Telegramme daily that the president's title as commander-in-chief of the armed forces was "an honorific, because it's the prime minister who holds the purse strings."
Therefore, "on Ukraine, the president will not be able to send troops," she added, undermining his warning to Moscow that France would keep all options on the table to thwart Russia's invasion of its neighbor.
Her candidate for prime minister, Jordan Bardella, has already vowed not to send Kyiv long-range missiles and other weapons that could strike Russian territory, in a reversal of Macron's policy.
The RN has also said it will not agree to form a government without an absolute majority – leaving open the possibility that no political force will be able to keep a prime minister in place.
Last gasp
Hoping to defy the odds, current incumbent Gabriel Attal -- named months ago by Macron as France's youngest-ever PM – will take on RN frontman Bardella and Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure in a TV debate on Thursday evening.
It marks one of the last opportunities to convince voters as campaigning is officially suspended on Saturday and during voting Sunday.
Candidates had failed to land any telling blows in a previous broadcast showdown Tuesday.
Attal on Wednesday hammered his message throughout the lightning three-week campaign at a stop in central France, asking voters to reject an RN that "stigmatizes" parts of the population and a left alliance he said indulged sectarianism.
Bardella may attempt to clarify some of his plans for voters' wallets, after struggling to explain how he would undo Macron's unpopular increase to the pension age or shape a policy to exempt under-30s from income tax.
He was forced to say Wednesday that "of course, there would be a ceiling" on the income tax exemption after being challenged on whether star France striker Kylian Mbappe's multi-million salary would go untaxed.