“Unfortunately, I do not have a large enough apartment, otherwise I would have hosted them with all my heart,” he said. But when she and her partner go to the polls in the first round of the French presidential election on Sunday, they will vote for a candidate who has been one of Putin’s most ardent supporters in Europe and has campaigned against refugee reception for years: far-right leader Marine Le Pen . Standing in a square in the Béziers market, Mondabric and her partner, Sylvian Vern, rejected Le Pen’s long-standing alliance with Putin and rejected the need for a broader review of immigration. “We have to help the French before we can help others,” said Verne, who is in his 60s. The couple, meanwhile, said their contempt for the incumbent and pioneer was so deep that they would consider moving abroad – perhaps to “an island” – if President Emanuel Macron won a second term. The first round of the presidential elections in France is scheduled for April 10. The Post’s Rick Noack explains the key issues and the top candidates. (Video: Alexa Juliana Ard, Rick Noack, Jayne Orenstein, Jackie Lay, Sarah Hashemi / The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post) There is no doubt that the war in Ukraine is big in this French election. He raised Macron’s profile as a world leader, while creating an extremely unusual situation in which the French leader did almost no campaigning. The announcement of his candidacy was issued not as a speech on high but as a written letter. He held his first large rally on Saturday, a week before the vote. The war has pushed France’s far-right candidates into distortions of their messages about Russia and immigrants, with Le Pen facing difficult questions about her previous ties to Putin and Eric Zemour having to explain why she once dreamed of a French Putin. The war has also renewed public concern about rising energy prices – an extremely flammable issue in France. However, Putin’s war has not radically changed the mainstream elections in the way some expected. Macron remains the first contender and was even able to extend his lead in the first round of the invasion. But the far right is in a historically strong position and some polls suggest a close second round between Le Pen and Macron. The French left, meanwhile, remains divided. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon is third in the polls, but his proposals are too extreme for many left-wing voters. A recent Ifop poll found that 27.5 percent of voters plan to vote for Macron in the first round, 22 percent for Le Pen and 15.5 percent for Melanson. If the second round – scheduled for April 24 – took place now, Macron would win Le Pen with 53 percent of the vote, according to Ifop. “What is happening is that the moderate left and right are disappearing,” said Pierre Mathiot, director of Sciences Po Lille, citing unsuccessful attempts by France’s established center-right and center-left parties to revive after their humiliating losses. in 2017. “Macron is in the process of crushing the center of politics – but the more he crushes it, the more space he gives to the radical wings,” Mathiot said. “I’m a little worried about French politics.” Abstentions could reach record levels, according to opinion polls, and street protests, similar to the “yellow vest” protests, could resume shortly after the vote, some researchers predict.
Macron takes advantage of role of ‘leader in time of war’ When Macron – a former investment banker and economy minister – launched his own political movement in 2016, he promised to bring a new style of politics to the Elysee Palace, with no obligation to established parties. In recent years, he has turned right on immigration, national security and other issues, which many see as a dangerous attempt to gain ground from right-wing parties, while believing his center-left and left-wing supporters will remain loyal to him. . This strategy seemed to have stalled early last year, when Lepen had been in a poll over Macron for months. But Macron has since distinguished himself as a multifaceted crisis manager, said Nicholas Dungan, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. French presidents wield more power than leaders in many other European nations – an advantage Macron used to quickly launch a coronavirus health card last year, boosting French vaccination rates and allowing normal life to resume more quickly. The war in Ukraine gave another knife to Macron to present himself as a leader at the moment. As his election challengers clashed on talk shows, Macron visited Moscow and held lengthy talks with Putin in a last-ditch effort to prevent war. After one of those phone calls, a senior French official recalled how Putin said Macron was “the only one with whom he could have such in-depth discussions.” Of course, these diplomatic efforts ultimately failed, but French voters do not seem to blame Macron, who rushed to change course, support sanctions and prepare the French for what he said is tantamount to a “turning point” in history. get heavy financial costs. “People are always gathering around a leader in time of war,” Dungan said. “Macron’s leadership is completely consistent with the image that the French have of what their country should do: It is a world power, it must be heard, it must aim for peace.” “Despite everything that is happening, he is in control,” said Safia Lahmel, a 58-year-old woman from Béziers who said she was likely to vote for Macron. “I feel more comfortable with the person in charge.” At his rally on a stadium on the outskirts of Paris last weekend, Macron was greeted as if he had already won. Many of his 30,000 supporters waved flags of France and the European Union. Laser lights revolved around a DJ and fireworks lit up the indoor arena. But in his speech, Macron warned that his victory is not certain. “Do not believe the commentators or the polls who say it is impossible, unthinkable,” he said of a far-right victory. “The risk of extremism today is even greater than it was a few months ago, a few years ago. Hate and alternative truths have been normalized in the public debate. We are used to it “. Among large sections of the electorate, Macron could not shake their perception that he was an elitist and had no contact. In recent days, his campaign has sought to respond to criticism that the pay of consultants – including the American consulting firm McKinsey – has risen to more than $ 1 billion last year. The issue resonates because it echoes a claim that Macron’s policies have benefited the rich and failed the poor. “The rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer – a group I belong to now,” said Mondabric, Le Pen’s voter in Béziers. “I only turn on two radiators and I always get cold,” he said. Amid rising inflation, the Macron government has been particularly concerned about rising energy prices. In 2018, a proposed increase in petrol taxes sparked a “yellow vest” movement that upset French cities and towns for months and overturned the young president’s agenda. This time, Macron was faster than the leaders of many other European countries in reducing gas and electricity prices for consumers.
Far right, distortions for Putin and the refugees, focus on the economy Rising costs have become a major issue on the streets of Béziers and other French cities. Once a so-called “world wine capital” that provided cheap but decent crops, Béziers lost its wealth when it became the primary target of European efforts to curb wine overproduction in the 1980s. in one of the poorest cities in the region. A former far-left stronghold, Béziers, like France, has shifted to the right. In 2014, he elected a far-right mayor who turned the city into a political laboratory for Le Pen and its allies. And, like other far-right figures, this mayor, Robert Ménard, quickly adapted his messages from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and the flight of more than 4.2 million refugees. Ménard, a regular player on French television, has been harassing refugees from the Middle East for years. But he recently apologized for his previous comments, saying he was “ashamed” and that refugees from all backgrounds should be treated with empathy. Nationwide, a photo of Le Pen shaking hands with Putin still appears in a campaign leaflet printed in the wake of the Russian invasion. But she has since welcomed Ukrainian refugees and downgraded her long-standing demand for a referendum on immigration, as well as her previous demand for lifting sanctions against Russia. Instead, it highlights concerns about rising cost of living and the impact of sanctions on energy prices. Its far-right challenger, Zemmour, has not undergone the same development. On the contrary, he has developed anti-immigrant rhetoric against Ukrainian refugees, he said. “What I do not want is a tsunami based on emotion.” While condemning the Russian invasion, it has reserved the greatest responsibility for the United States. “We could have avoided this war if the Americans had accepted that Ukraine has a state of neutrality,” he said. By staying in these and others Zemour made Le Pen appear more and more modest. Although in 2017 he lost to Macron – 33.9 percent vs. 66.1 percent – he now seems to be heading towards a more competitive final round. “It would be a historic record for the far right in France,” said Gilles Ivaldi, a researcher at France’s Po Paris National Center for Scientific Research and Science.
