“Marine Le Pen has reinvented herself. Her style now is more moderate,” reckons Jacques Rupnik, a French political scientist, ahead of the country’s widely anticipated battle for the presidency.

Many voters in France will vote for the candidate they see as having the best chance of defeating the far-right leader, Rupnik explains.

“All polls show that if the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon faced Marine Le Pen in the second round of France’s presidential election, Marine Le Pen would win,” he says, explaining that many French votes are unwilling to back Mélenchon.

In his interview with Denník N, Rupnik claims Mélenchon is the first French presidential candidate to seek support from immigrants so explicitly.

Find out:

• How Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon have used the migration debate for their campaigns.
• Why the presidential frontrunners do not understand economic issues.
• Rupnik’s assessment of Emmanuel Macron’s two presidential terms.
• Who does Marine Le Pen look up to?

Polls suggest that if France held a presidential election now, far-right Marine Le Pen and far-left Mélenchon would make the second round. What does this tell us about France?

France is divided and polarised. Young people in particular tend to lean towards more radical parties. Establishment parties are old and worn; they have lost their appeal. They have little to say, except for claiming that others are dangerous or worse. But you must bring something new to an election. But after ten years of Macron, that is very difficult.

And it is not entirely true that all polls predict Mélenchon will reach the second round; they often place former prime minister Edouard Philippe ahead of him. Mélenchon is powering ahead in polls because he has launched his campaign and is very good at it. But, nothing is decided.

In French presidential elections there are two rounds. In the first round, you vote for your preferred candidate; in the second, you vote for the lesser evil. So, for most voters, the question will not only be whom they prefer, but also who has the best chance of defeating Le Pen in the second round.

And that is very important. All polls say that if Mélenchon faced Le Pen in the second round, he would lose. Many people are not willing to vote for Mélenchon. A centrist candidate has the best chance of defeating Le Pen, so for now it looks like former prime minister Philippe.

But only if another former prime minister, Gabriel Attal, withdraws his candidacy.

Yes. We have two strong parties at the extremes, and the space in the centre has shrunk. The narrower it becomes, the more candidates appear within it. Every week, another politician tells media: “You know what, I would give it a go.”

Attal, of course, wants to win over Macron supporters — that is, voters on the centre left. The fact he is in the race matters even if he withdraws and endorses another candidate. That may prove a good strategy.

If Le Pen and Mélenchon reach the second round, many would vote Le Pen. Why?

Marine Le Pen has reinvented herself. Not in the sense that she has been thinking about what new ideas to bring forward, but now her style now is more moderate. It is no longer the brash style associated with her father.

Perhaps she took her cue from Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, seeing a candidate whom everyone feared, but no radical changes followed her election because she adapted quickly to European realities.

Le Pen points out that in several European countries, including Finland and Sweden, the far right has been in government and nothing has happened.

At the same time, Marine Le Pen managed to break through a certain barrier, and some moderate rightwing voters have shifted to her side.

How did that happen?

Previously, the moderate right was stronger and Le Pen’s camp was weaker. The type of rightwing voters who voted for Jacques Chirac have now shifted their weigh behind more radical options. The balance has shifted, and right-wing voters are saying: “Why should we, the right, be excluded from politics simply because Macron has failed and the Le Pen has grown stronger?”

Immigration is another reason behind growing support for Le Pen. Mélenchon is also capitalising on the immigration debate, but in the opposite way to her.

Please explain that.

Mélenchon opposes Le Pen’s position by arguing that immigrants integrate. The Le Pen camp says: “No, they have come from a different culture and their attitude is anti-French.” Le Pen’s camp says that integration works poorly, that immigrants do not even want to integrate instead preferring to live in their own communities.

“Mélenchon has therefore adopted the theory of grand remplacement, but instead of presenting it as a threat, he has turned it into a huge opportunity.”

And Mélenchon argues that it is fine for immigrants to remain in their own communities, practise their own religions, for women to wear headscarves and so on.

The great replacement conspiracy theory (“grand remplacement“) should be mentioned since the far right embraced it long ago. It is the idea that the native French population will gradually be replaced by new immigrants.

And Mélenchon now says: “What great replacement? On the contrary, it is an opportunity for France. He says: “The more of us there are, the better.”

Mélenchon has therefore adopted the theory of grand remplacement, but instead of presenting it as a threat, he has turned it into a huge opportunity. Of course, everyone knows what he is aiming for. It is an election campaign, and he is appealing to voters who are themselves immigrants.

Previously, no one focused on immigrants in elections except Le Pen who used them as a bogeyman. And now Mélenchon says: “We are appealing to Muslims.” He says Muslim headscarves are fine and religious symbols are fine. He says anyone who opposes this is racist.

In August, Le Pen announced her intention to ban headscarves in public spaces. Will her anti-Islamic agenda help her win?

On the contrary, such statements mainly play into Mélenchon’s hands. Of course, calling a referendum on the issue in France is not so simple since such laws already exist. The law states clearly that you can do what you want at home, but if you work in the public sector you must refrain from displaying your religion. There are laws covering this, and there is absolutely no need to devise new ones. Le Pen’s ideas in this regard seem to be mere campaign slogans; we cannot take them literally.

Yet, a major Le Monde poll shows the French are more concerned about the economy than immigration. Immigration ranks fourth, after social issues and ecology.

That is true, but other polls show that, for many voters, the issues of migration and safety overlap considerably.

So, as concerns about security become increasingly prominent, people are more concerned about security and often link it to migration. Marine Le Pen will certainly try to make it one of the key issues, alongside the economy.

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Maria, a Colombian woman, thought she was going to Poland to work at one of the country’s biggest meat-processing plants. Instead, the employment agency that arranged her job had quietly enrolled her in school.

She discovered this only after translating the papers she had been given. One said she was a student at an adult secondary school in Sieradz, another enrolled her at a Polish university. But Maria had never applied to either institution, attended a class or even heard of them.

Her case is part of a wider trade in fake student documents that exploited Poland’s labour and immigration systems. Employment agencies used fictitious student status to make foreign workers cheaper to employ, while private universities issued certificates that could help foreigners obtain visas or legalise their stay.

An investigation by the Polish publication Onet found the same schools and universities repeatedly appearing in documents issued to foreign workers from around the world. Some institutions existed largely on paper; in other cases, fraudsters forged documents in the names of legitimate schools without their knowledge.

The schemes went beyond fake student cards. Private universities also issued certificates used to obtain visas, enter the Schengen area or legalise residency.

They cost Poland’s social-security system millions of zloty and left some migrants facing job losses, residency problems and possible deportation – while people linked to the schools have established ties to Poland’s pro-Russian organisations and media.

Fake students cheaper for employers

Polish labour laws incentivise employment of students aged up to 26 under so-called agreements to perform a job. It means employers do not have to pay social security or health insurance contributions for them. The workers cost less than regular employees.

So, student status has become a sought-after commodity that employment agencies have exploited for gains.

A central figure in the case is Dariusz M., a school head in Sieradz detained by police in late May. When reporters from TVN24 posed as employers looking for a way to legalise the employment of foreign immigrants, M. offered to enrol them as students for 750 zloty (around €175) per person.

Prosecutors suspect him of participating in an organised group that allegedly issued around 2,500 false study certificates, costing the Polish state nearly six million zloty (more than €1.4m) in unpaid contributions.

Documents were often arranged by employment agencies with foreign workers unaware they had formally been enrolled at a school.

“In most cases, they do not even know they are involved in something illegal. They trust the employment agency,” said Rocio Flores, president of the Union of Latin American Workers in Poland.

When an inspection uncovers the fraud, the foreign workers face losing their jobs, residency problems and, in some cases, deportation. “We migrants suffer most as a result,” Flores said.

Inspections carried out by Poland’s social insurance authority confirmed there were many such cases.

In August, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reported that Poland’s social insurance body (ZUS) stepped up inspections of companies employing foreigners with pupil or student status.

They reported that inspectors uncovered cases in which agencies pay schools for fake study certificates despite the worker having never attended classes, with Poland’s social welfare system losing out on millions of zloty.

Schools oblivious to study scam

Not all paperwork for fake students came from education institutions themselves. Some student cards and study certificates were forged in the name of real schools without their knowledge, as was the case of a Cosinus network branch in the town of Piaseczno.

Its head, Elżbieta Gotchold-Leśniewski, showed Onet reporters a file containing 62 forgeries found in various parts of Poland and had been issued to people from South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. “That is not my signature, and the school’s hologram is wrong too. In fact, many things are wrong,” she said.

The forgers incorrectly copied the four-leaf clover in the school’s logo, giving rise to the term “fake four-leaf clovers” in the Polish website’s headline. The documents were nevertheless convincing enough to be accepted by employers or used by holders during ticket inspections on public transport.

A student card and certificate package cost 200 to 800 zloty (€45 to €180). One man called the school directly because he had paid 600 (€140) zloty for a set of documents and wanted to know when classes would begin. The school’s staff told him he was, in fact, not registered there at all.

Dodgy paperwork for 20+ nationalities

Since 2022, Poland’s border guard has been investigating a group that, under the cover of three private universities, sold foreigners documents needed to obtain visas or legalise their stays.

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