Then Russia invaded Ukraine.
With Europe’s eyes fixed on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody war, priorities have shifted rapidly: ammunition stockpiles, high-risk diplomacy and even the threat of a nuclear strike have all entered the national debate. The election campaign has been disrupted by the crisis and several key candidates have had to relinquish their previous support for Putin. Full of experience on the world stage, most polls suggest incumbent President Emanuel Macron is likely to rise to the top. could quarrel more tightly than the last time the couple met in 2017. France has not re-elected a president for 20 years, diplomacy has outgrown the election campaign on the president’s agenda, and with the conflict sparking a cost-of-life crisis, French voters are not facing the much-anticipated election. Here’s what you need to know.

When are the elections and how do they work?

To elect their new president, French voters are likely to go to the polls twice. The first ballot, on Sunday 10 April, puts 12 candidates against each other. These candidates qualified for the race with the approval of 500 mayors and / or local councilors from across the country. If no candidate wins 50% of the vote in the first round, the two candidates with the most votes will advance to the second round two weeks later, on Sunday 24 April. Of the 12 candidates in the race, the IFOP poll shows that only five have garnered more than 10% of the vote. A second round of voting is almost guaranteed. This is also not the only national vote facing France this year – parliamentary elections will be held in June.

Who is in the fight?

The existing one The first president Emanuel Macron has been elected in only one election – his successful presidential election in 2017 – and he had a mixed record in 2022. Given that no incumbent French president has been re-elected by Jacques Chirac in 2002, it is a difficult point to find, although it is the favorite. A former investment banker and a graduate of some of France’s most elite schools, Macron sparked national outrage with a diesel tax early in his presidency, sparking the yellow vest movement – one of the longest-running protests the country has seen here. and decades. “The popularity rating today is significant,” political commentator Jean-Michel Aphatie told CNN. “The level of hatred towards Emanuel Macron is important and common.” Internationally, his efforts to win over Donald Trump, to block the AUKUS submarine deal, and his unsuccessful 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 consolidated his geopolitical credentials at home. The most unexpected challenge of his presidency – Covid-19 – has perhaps determined his time in power. More than two years of lockdowns and mask orders, a misdiagnosis of vaccines in the EU and the bold move to force the French to be vaccinated have sparked outcry, even as most of the country has learned to live with the reality of the virus and the a quiet majority supported the measures. Macron has refused to talk to his opponents and has hardly campaigned. While his pole position in the race was never really threatened, experts believe that his strategy was to avoid the political mud as much as possible, in order to promote his image as the most presidential of all the candidates. But a week after the first ballot, Macron urged his supporters to refrain from complacency. “Anything is possible,” he told them, warning of the possibility of a Brexit-style reversal in the election. The challenger “French electoral logic means that in the second round you have to be the least hated of the two remaining candidates,” Etienne Girard, editor of L’Express magazine, told CNN. While France’s first round sees the ballot box across the political spectrum, in the second round many people vote to keep a candidate away from home as well as to elect their opponent. This has been a problem for Marine Le Pen, who has been synonymous with the French far right for much of the last decade. The 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 to Chirac in 2002. Marin Le Pen’s strategy for this election was initially to gain the main support – “a strategy of respect”, as Girard describes it. While still strongly anti-immigrant, easing its tone on key issues such as Islam and Euroscepticism – especially after Brexit – has been widely touted as an attempt to win over voters outside its far-right base. Even so, the “cessation of uncontrolled immigration” and the “elimination of Islamist ideologies” are the two main priorities of its manifesto. A fan of Vladimir Putin – a photo of her visiting the Russian president appears in a pamphlet that has since been deleted – the war in Ukraine has raised uncomfortable questions for Lepen. However, in the last weeks of the campaign, it has put the cost of living in front of and at the center of its platform, promising measures that it claims will put “150 to 200 euros” back in the pockets of every household, including a commitment to abolish the 100 household tax. items. Le Pen is known for arresting inaccessible voters, according to poll researcher Emmanuel Riviere. “He always manages to seduce people who are not interested in politics at all, precisely because it offers them a solution to express their anger at politics,” he told CNN. Le Pen is currently much higher than in the 2017 election. A few days before the first round, the IFOP poll shows that it can win 47% of the vote in the second round against Macron. New ends The new kid on the block, far-right TV expert and writer Eric Zemour has long been touted as a possible candidate for the presidency. Known for his uncompromising stances on Islam, children with non-French names and immigration, he has twice been convicted of inciting racial or religious hatred. As a presidential candidate, he has doubled his racial rhetoric, promoting the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory in his speeches and promising a “resettlement ministry” to deport up to 1 million people of North African descent from France. The theory is that immigrants want to “replace” the native French population. Zemour enjoyed a position among the top three candidates until March, according to an IFOP poll, challenging the Le Pen’s dominance of the far-right political party. He openly cites Islam as a threat to France and has attracted a more educated and affluent population to the political elite, according to Riviere. A well-read and talented orator, his call “to save our homeland, our culture, our culture” has hit the chord of some. “People, when they sit in front of their televisions and listen to him, they feel exalted. And that, in France, is something that is very much expected of a political leader,” said Girard, who has also written a biography of Zemmour. . Eventually, however, he steps on Lepen’s fingers. “They are really in direct competition with each other because their confrontation can make them lose big with each other,” Riviere said. Zemmour – who in 2018 proudly admitted that he “dreamed” of a French Putin – has seen his popularity decline since the start of the war in Ukraine. Zemour was publicly convinced that Putin would never invade and then continued to defend him even after he did. Zemour has since condemned the invasion – something of a reversal of his support for the Russian president. External possibilities In Jean-Luc Melenchon, the French far left also has its fancy politician. France Unbowed leader, veteran activist and politician Melenchon has been in three presidential races so far. Its flagship policies include a “fiscal revolution”, a radical overhaul of the French government for more direct involvement of the electorate and a € 1 billion plan to combat violence against women – a hot topic in France. But without a unifying candidate, the French left seems unlikely to claim a place in the second round. Melanson has a loyal base among far-left voters, but is struggling to win more center-right voters. Both Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris and the left-wing Socialist Party presidential candidate, and Valerie Pecresse, the Republican right-wing party, struggled to advance in the polls – a condemnatory indictment of French politics. Their parties suffered from the creation of Macron’s central party “La Republique En Marche” in 2016 and have not yet recovered. But while Macron may be ahead as French voters prepare to go to the polls, April may have some surprises in store. “In this country, anything is possible. We have seen the impossible become a reality in other countries,” said political commentator Aphatie. “Donald Trump was elected? Never.”

What do the polls say?

Incumbent President Macron is ahead, according to an IFOP poll, which shows his support levels have not fallen below 24% since January and rose to 31% in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine. Likewise, Marin Le Pen has maintained second place for almost the last three months – reaching a high of 21% at the end of March – according to the IFOP. All…