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PARIS, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Infighting has broken out among centrist candidates for France's presidential race, splitting the mainstream vote and making a runoff between far-right Marine Le Pen and hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon more likely.
Opinion polls before next April's presidential election show Le Pen is nearly certain to qualify for a second-round runoff in May and that Melenchon is consistently nudging ahead of mainstream candidates.
Centre-right Edouard Philippe, President Emmanuel Macron's former prime minister, has so far been the centre's torchbearer.
But Philippe's lacklustre campaign, voter weariness near the end of Macron's two terms, an explosive social and security context and the challenges he faces from within his own camp have hurt his polling, people in Macron's camp and political analysts say.
"There's panic on board because there was no scenario planned for this. They hadn't anticipated the cataclysm under way," said Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, a political communications specialist at Sciences Po.
Philippe has also faced criticism over several awkward interventions — including suggesting in a podcast that ideally a newly elected president should have three months to rest before taking office — and political analysts say he is struggling to connect with voters at a time of rising political tensions.
"The terrible thing is that he isn't cutting through,"Moreau-Chevrolet told Reuters. "They didn't understand that you have to campaign. There's a kind of dilettantism."
The anxiety has sharpened tensions between Philippe and his main rival, Gabriel Attal, another former prime minister. They are locked in a battle over who should step aside for the centrist ticket.
Philippe fell to 15% support in an IFOP-Fiducial poll for Le Figaro newspaper, a six-point drop since September. That is below the 16.5% for Melenchon, who would have enough to qualify for a runoff against Le Pen.
Attal stood at 13%, behind Melenchon and Raphael Glucksmann, a mainstream centre-left candidate.
Under pressure from lawmakers in his camp to abandon his presidential ambitions and rally to Philippe,Attal irritated many Macron allies this week by reviving the idea of a broad centrist primary, a proposal critics say risks fuelling division at a time when moderates can least afford it.
Still, Attal has leverage. As leader of Macron's Renaissance party, he controls the purse strings of the party machine.
CENTRIST VOTE FRAGMENTS
"It's catastrophic," said Jean-Baptiste Moreau, a former lawmaker from Macron's camp.
"They are attacking one another in the media and they are both collapsing in the polls. We're heading straight towards anRN-LFI second round," he said of Le Pen's National Rally (RN) and Melenchon's France Unbowed (LFI). "In the current state of opinion, I don't see how we avoid it."
The fragmentation stretches beyond the Philippe-Attal feud.
On the centre-left, Glucksmann has gained ground after winning the Socialist primary. On the right, Bruno Retailleau, a former interior minister, and David Lisnard, the free-market mayor of Cannes, are targeting the same moderate electorate.
Philippe's supporters say reports of his demise are premature. Laurent Marcangeli, a member of Philippe's party Horizons, acknowledged recent polling setbacks but said the former prime minister remained the only centrist candidate with a realistic path to the runoff.
"He's still in the race for the second round and to prevent a Le Pen-Melenchon duel," said Marcangeli, adding that in some polls Attal scored as low as single digits.
Some Macron allies, however, are openly questioning whether either man should carry on. They say any association with Macron, who is finishing his second term at record-low popularity, will weigh on a centrist candidate.
"The two of them are collapsing," said Perrine Goulet, a lawmaker from Macron ally MoDem. "Any candidate who has been in a Macron government is going to be struggling."
With Le Pen and Melenchon consolidating support at opposite ends of the spectrum, she said moderates needed to put aside personal ambitions and rally behind a single contender able to unite supporters of Glucksmann through to Retailleau.
"We're calling on everyone to put their egos aside and find the best candidate," Goulet said.
"If we keep Glucksmann on one side, Retailleau on the other, Edouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal, we'll end up with an LFI-RN second round. The danger is simply too great."
(Editing by Mark John and Timothy Heritage)
