The far-left presidential candidate Mr Mélenchon failed to make it through the first ballot last week, and went on to call on his voters not to “give a vote” to far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the second round on April 24. He repeated the message three times on Sunday April 10 after he narrowly missed qualifying for the 2nd round of the election, despite seeing an unexpected surge in support that saw him gain nearly 22percent of the vote.

However, French TV news station TF1info report that some of Mr Mélenchon’s 7.7million voters are preparing to choose Ms Le Pen regardless, after being disillusioned with Mr Macron over the course of his presidency.

One Mélenchon voter speaking to Politico described the decision between Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen as “like choosing between the plague and cholera”.

According to a study by the news station on April 15, 18 percent of those who voted for Mr Mélenchon in the first round intend to vote for Rassemblement National (Ms Le Pen’s party) in the second round.

This result was backed up by an IPSOS-Sopra-Steria opinion poll on Saturday April 16, which found that 33percent of Mr Mélenchon’s voters would back Mr Macron, with 16percent supporting Ms Le Pen.

However, 51percent of people were undecided.

For many of those surveyed by TF1, their motivations were based purely on trying to block Mr Macron from a second term.

One stated that they will “reluctantly” vote for Ms Le Pen, but prefers “a candidate who wants to help the middle class and civil servants.”

They added: “Emmanuel Macron has not managed to reassure the French and with the current inflation, fewer and fewer are getting by.”

Another described Mr Macron’s party, La République En Marche, as “the most dangerous party in France”.

Some have stated that they will now abstain from the vote in protest against the lack of a candidate they can relate to, but French politician and author Philippe Pascot blasted the strategy.

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He said: “If there are the assholes who voted Macron, there are the ‘even more assholes’ who didn’t vote. It’s madness. The French are stupid, we agree.”

Addressing Mr Mélanchon’s call not to vote for Ms Le Pen, Mr Pascot reiterated his rejection of Mr Macron.

He said: Mélenchon, what he said is nice ‘not one vote for the far right’ Ok! but that doesn’t mean I’m going to vote for Macron.

“For me, it’s everything but Macron! I’m going to get killed for saying that, but it has to be anything but Macron.”

Asked what Mr Macron could do to convince left-wing voters to choose him, the mayor of Trappes and former member of the Socialist party Ali Rabeh said: “To be honest, it would be better if he shut up because each time he opens his mouth he exasperates our voters, and this encourages them not to vote or to vote blank.

“If Macron is going to say something it should be a clear message of compromise, not something vague like perhaps lowering his proposal for retirement at 65 to 64-and-a-half. People aren’t that asleep; that’s just playing with fire.”

“Le Pen is in a position to win, and if she does it will be the most vulnerable, the minorities, immigrants, those without papers, who will suffer most.

“I’m not going to campaign for Macron, but I don’t think we have any choice. We shouldn’t underestimate support for the far right.”

According to estimates by opinion and marketing research group Ifop-Fiducial, Emmanuel Macron remains set to win, but with just 53.5percent of the vote.