An incumbent president running for the second time in his life; a candidate twice convicted of inciting racist and religious hatred, second place elections; another stubborn stubborn man in third place and the long-dominating left of French politics in disarray.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine.
With Europe’s eyes firmly on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody war, priorities have shifted rapidly: ammunition stockpiles, high-stakes diplomacy and even the threat of a nuclear strike have all entered the national debate.
The campaign was cut short by the crisis, and several key candidates had to give up their previous support for Putin.
Enlightened by his experience on the world stage, most opinion polls suggest that current President Emmanuel Macron is likely to take the lead. But just days before the election, his closest rival, Marine Le Pen, is rising in opinion polls, suggesting the vote could be fiercer than the last time the couple faced off in 2017.
France has not re-elected an incumbent president for 20 years, diplomacy has topped the campaign on the president’s agenda, and as the conflict fuels the cost of living crisis, French voters are not facing the election many expected.
Here’s what you need to know.
When are the elections and how are they going?
To elect their new president, French voters are likely to go to the polls twice.
The first vote on Sunday, April 10th, pitted 12 candidates against each other. These candidates qualified for the race, receiving approval from 500 mayors and / or local councilors across the country.
If no candidate wins 50% of the vote in the first round, the two candidates with the most votes will go to the runoff two weeks later, on Sunday, April 24.
Of the 12 candidates in the race, an IFOP poll shows that only five have ever garnered more than 10% of the vote. A second round of voting is almost guaranteed.
This is also not the only national vote France is facing this year – parliamentary elections will be held in June.
Who is in the race?
The incumbent
President Emmanuel Macron’s first term was in only one election – his successful presidential candidacy in 2017 – and had mixed results in 2022. Given that no incumbent French president has won re-election since Jacques Chirac in 2002. his is a difficult place, although he is a favorite.
A former investment banker and graduate of some of France’s most elite schools, Macron sparked a nationwide diesel tax at the beginning of his presidency, sparking the yellow vest movement, one of the country’s longest-running protests. seen for decades.
“Today’s popularity rating is important,” political commentator Jean-Michel Afati told CNN. “The level of hatred towards Emmanuel Macron is significant and shared.
Internationally, his attempts to win over Donald Trump, prevent a deal on the AUKUS submarine, and his failed diplomatic efforts to prevent a war in Ukraine have undoubtedly failed. But Macron’s full support for an ambitious and autonomous European Union has earned him respect abroad and strengthened his geopolitical authority at home. The most unexpected challenge of his presidency – Covid-19 – may have determined his tenure. More than two years of blocking and mandates for masks, misapplication of vaccines in the EU and a bold move to effectively force the French to be vaccinated have sparked vocal opposition, even as most of the country learns to live with the realities of the virus and the silent majority. support the measures.
Macron refused to discuss his opponents and hardly participated in the campaign. Although his pole position in the race has never been really threatened, experts say his strategy was to avoid political blurring for as long as possible in order to tarnish his image as the most presidential of all candidates.
But a week after the first vote, Macron urged his supporters to be wary of complacency. “Anything is possible,” he told them, warning of the possibility of Brexit-style disorder.
The challenger
“French electoral logic means that in the second round you have to be at least hated by the other two candidates,” Etienne Girard, editor of L’Express magazine, told CNN.
While the first round in France cast ballots across the political spectrum, in the second round many voted to keep a candidate out of office enough to choose their opponent.
This was a problem for Marine Le Pen, who has been synonymous with the French far right for most of the last decade. Now an MP in the Calais region – the gateway to the UK, which is struggling to deal with migrants heading to Britain – anti-immigrant Le Pen faced Macron in 2017, but lost by a significant margin.
Her father, far-right colleague Jean-Marie Le Pen, also lost in the second round, in his case with Chirac in 2002.
Marin Le Pen’s strategy for this election was originally to gain basic support – a “respect strategy”, as Girard describes it.
Although still strongly anti-immigrant, softening her tone on leading topics such as Islam and Euroscepticism – especially after Brexit – has been widely touted as an attempt to attract voters outside her far-right base. However, “stopping uncontrolled immigration” and “eradicating Islamist ideologies” are the two main priorities of her manifesto.
A fan of Vladimir Putin – a photo of her visit to the Russian president, presented in a leaflet about a scrapped election campaign – the war in Ukraine has raised awkward questions about Le Pen.
But in the last weeks of the campaign, she has put the cost of living at the forefront and center of her platform, promising measures she claims will put “150 to 200 euros” back in every household’s pockets, including a promise to raise sales tax. per 100 household needs.
Le Pen is known for capturing hard-to-reach voters, according to sociologist Emmanuel Riviere. “She always manages to seduce people who are not interested in politics at all, precisely because she offers them a solution to express their anger at politics,” he told CNN.
Le Pen is currently polling much higher than in the 2017 election. In the days after the first round, an IFOP poll suggested she could win 47% of the vote in the second round against Macron.
New extremes
The bloc’s new kid, far-right television expert and author Eric Zemor, has long been touted as a possible presidential candidate. Known for his uncompromising stance on Islam, children with non-French names and immigration, he has been twice convicted of inciting racial or religious hatred.
As a presidential candidate, he redoubled his race-based rhetoric, promoting the racist conspiracy theory “The Great Exchange” and promising the “Ministry of Reimigration” to deport up to 1 million people of North African descent from France. The theory is that immigrants want to “replace” the local French population.
Zemmour was among the top three candidates until March, according to an IFOP poll, challenging the Le Pen family’s dominance over the political far right.
He openly cites Islam as a threat to France and has drawn more educated and affluent demographic groups to political extremes, according to Riviere. A well-read and talented speaker, his appeal to “save our country, our civilization, our culture” has struck some.
“When people sit in front of their TVs and listen to it, they feel uplifted. And this in France is something that is very much expected of a political leader, “said Girard, who also wrote a biography of Zemmour.
In the end, however, he stepped on Le Pen’s toes.
“They are really in direct competition with each other because their confrontation can make them lose a lot to one or the other,” Riviere said.
Zemmur – who proudly admitted in 2018 that he was “dreaming” of French Putin – has seen his popularity decline since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Zemur was publicly convinced that Putin would never invade, and then continued to defend him even after that. Zemur has since condemned the invasion, a reversal in his support for the Russian president.
External chances
In Jean-Luc Melanchon, the French far left also has its own ardent politician. The leader of the Unconquered France party, veteran activist and politician Melenchon, has so far participated in three presidential contests.
Among his leading policies are the “fiscal revolution”, a radical rethinking of French rule towards more direct electorate participation and a € 1 billion plan to combat violence against women – a hot issue in France.
But deprived of a unifying candidate, the French left seems to have little chance of fighting for a place in the second round. Melenchon has a loyal base among far-left voters, but he is struggling to win more centrist voters.
Both Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris and candidate for president of the left-wing Socialist Party, and Valerie Pecres, of the right-wing Republican Party, are struggling to make progress in the polls – a humiliating accusation against the French political mainstream. Their parties have suffered since the creation of Macron’s centrist party La Republique En Marche in 2016 and have not yet recovered.
But while Macron may be in the lead, as French voters prepare to go to the polls, April may still have surprises.
“Everything is possible in this country. We have seen the impossible happen in other countries,” said political commentator Afati. “Donald Trump is elected? Never.”
What do the polls say?
Incumbent President Macron is in the lead, according to a poll by IFOP, which suggests that his support levels have not fallen below 24% since January and rose to a high of 31% in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine.
Similarly, Marine Le Pen remained in second place for almost all of the last three months – reaching a 21% peak in late March – according to IFOP.
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