I want to talk with the 11-12% of Frenchmen who consistently believes that Macron is left wing.
The groups with the highest share who responded that way are Zemmourites and the remaining LR diehards. Which makes sense if you put yourself in their shoes and analyze their perceptions. From their position, they have a image of what a "right" politician is in their head, and that person is not Macron - in fact that person quite clearly draws distinctions with him. The perfect is essentially the enemy of the good, with it not mattering how much Macron speaks their language. He doesn't do a few things in manners these arch-conservatives desire and those get magnified into distinguishing wedges between these voter's imagined "right" and Macron's "right."
Macron is a Liberal, Zemmour etc are Conservatives. Despite the fact Liberals (particularly economic) and Conservatives usually both get lumped into the term "right wing" by their opponents, they are two very different ideologies.
And it isn't just Liberals and Conservatives; In what way does it make sense to call Macron right wing for being an economic liberal, but then call Le Pen for example "far right", when they are in some ways virtually opposites?
It has nothing to do with this pop psychology, it is just left and right wing aren't particularly useful terms, especially right wing as it lumps together a number of strands of ideology that are almost diametrically opposed. If you are a conservative or nationalist and view yourself as right wing, Macron will look like your political opposite.
So this poll isn't particularly interesting, all it shows is that the largest number subscribe to the idea economically liberal = right wing, a smaller number recognise it as different to right wing conservatives and nationalists and call it centrist (again this is a category error, but hey ho), and what is left of French Conservatives are more likely to view Macronian Liberalism as left wing. None of these views is really any more incorrect than the others.
