As we discussed in our video, political opinion polls in France have a growing influence on the euro. And on this Friday, the polls have a bigger impact and for good reasons.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macros is not only consolidating his gain against center-right candidate Françios Fillon but according to the Odoxa poll, he already leads the first round. Knocking off extreme-right candidate Marine Le Pen from the first place in the first round is a first.

According to all second-round polls, Macron beats Le Pen by a very safe 60% to 40% while Fillon has a slightly smaller lead. However, a victory already in the first round would help rally the troops around him and make his victory even more certain.

A second poll by Opinionway, released daily, shows Macron at 62% against 38% for Le Pen in the second round, which is quite similar to previous days. The more interesting piece of news here is that the young independent candidate has widened the gap for the second place from Fillon: from 3% to 5%.

Fillon’s campaign has been marred by the “Penelpegate” scandal. He employed his wife and sons on publicly paid roles in parliament without them doing any real work. Further investigations have significantly hurt him, with some allies abandoning his ticket.

Macron has received support from Bayrou, another centrist which announced he would support Macron instead of running alone.

EUR/USD is currently trading at 1.0540, some 50 pips off the lows seen this week. The wider range is 1.0490 to the double-top of 1.0660. So, euro/dollar is still at the lower end of the range but recovering. The main driver for the pair this week came from the Federal Reserve. Dudley, Williams and also Brainard all came out with upbeat comments, raising expectations for a rate hike in the March 15th meeting.