Macron won that race by almost two votes to one. But while the candidates remain the same, the 2022 race is shaped by a very different case. Here’s everything you need to know.
How do elections work?
French voters go to the polls twice to elect their new president. In the first ballot, Sunday, 12 candidates ran against each other. They qualified for the race with the approval of 500 mayors and / or local councilors from across the country. Macron and Le Pen received the most votes, but as neither won more than 50%, they will advance to the second round on Sunday, April 24th. This is not the only national vote facing France this year – parliamentary elections are also set to take place in June.
What dates do I need to know?
Macron and Le Pen will have a debate on the night of April 20, which will be broadcast by the French broadcasters France 2 and TF1. The second round of elections will be held on Sunday, April 24. Candidates are not allowed to campaign on the day before the vote or on election day itself and the media will be subject to strict reporting restrictions from the day before the election until the close of the polls at 8 p.m. on Sunday in France.
What do the polls show?
A much closer match than the 2017 elections. Macron and Le Pen both increased their overall share of the vote in the first round this year compared to 2017, but polls before the first round on April 10 showed that Le Pen enjoyed a belated increase in support in March. The Ifop-Fiducial poll released on April 10 shows that Macron would win the second round against Lepen by just 51% to 49%. Macron’s advantage has increased in the days since the start of the first round results, but two weeks is a lot of time in politics – and a lot could change from now until election day. Political analysts often say that the French vote with their hearts in the first round and then vote with their heads in the second round – meaning that they first choose their ideal candidate and then choose the lesser of two evils in the second round. Macron saw this game in 2017. He and Le Pen scored 24% and 21.3% of the vote in the first round and then 66.1% and 33.9% in the second round, respectively. To be re-elected, Macron will probably need to persuade supporters of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melanson to back him. Melenchon came in third with 22% of the vote. On Sunday, Melanson told his supporters “we should not give a single vote to Ms. Le Pen,” but did not explicitly support Macron. Most of the losing candidates urged their supporters to support Macron to prevent the far right from winning the presidency. Eric Zemour, a former right-wing TV expert known for his inflammatory rhetoric, urged his supporters to support Le Pen.
What are the French waiting for?
The unexpected.
In early 2022, the election seemed to be a major referendum on the growing popularity of the French far right. It has been 20 years since the re-election of a French President, when the vote was formed in one of the most popular political tribes in the country for decades.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine.
With Europe’s eyes fixed on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody war, priorities have shifted rapidly: stockpiles of ammunition, high-risk diplomacy and even the threat of a nuclear strike have all entered the national debate.
Macron took over the role of European politician, removing him from the election campaign, while Le Pen was forced to step down from her previous support for Putin.
What else has changed in the last five years?
The political landscape of France, for one. Macron’s election essentially blew up the traditional center of French politics. In recent years, many of his constituents would have flocked to the traditional center-left and center-right parties, the Socialists and the Republicans. But Paris-based Social Democrat candidate Anne Hidalgo and Republican nominee Valérie Pécresse failed to persuade voters to leave the incumbent incumbent. Both took part in a poll of less than 5% in the first round.
What else do I need to know about Macron and Le Pen?
Emmanuel Macron is a former investment banker and a graduate of some of France’s most elite schools. He was a beginner in politics before becoming President, and this is only the second political election in which he has ever participated. But it is no longer a start and has to run on a mixed drive. His ambitious plan to strengthen the autonomy and geopolitical weight of the European Union has earned him respect abroad and at home, despite his efforts to win over Donald Trump or prevent the AUKUS submarine deal and his failed diplomatic efforts. prevent the war in Ukraine could be considered failures. Macron’s domestic policies are more divisive and less popular. The handling of the yellow vest movement, one of France’s longest-running protests in decades, has been widely publicized and its history of the Covid-19 pandemic is unclear. Macron’s signature policy during the crisis – which required people to show proof of vaccination to get on with their lives – helped boost vaccination rates but sparked a vocal minority against his presidency. In the run-up to the first round of this election, Macron refused to talk to his opponents and has hardly campaigned. While his pole position in the race was never really threatened, experts believe his strategy was to avoid the political mud as much as possible to maintain the focus on his image as the most presidential of all the candidates. Marin Le Pen is the most recognizable figure of the French far right. She is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the National Front, the predecessor of Le Pen’s current political party. The younger Lepen tried to redefine the party’s name, as it has long been considered racist and anti-Semitic. This is her third shot at the presidency. This year and 2017, she surpassed her father in the first round of voting. In 2017, Le Pen launched a campaign in response to France’s Trump: A right-winger who promised to protect France’s forgotten working class from immigrants, globalization and the technology that made their jobs obsolete. Since then, it has abandoned some of its most controversial political proposals, such as leaving the European Union. But in general, her economic nationalist stance, her views on immigration, her skepticism about Europe and her position on Islam in France – she wants to make it illegal for women to wear headscarves in public – have not changed. “Stopping uncontrolled immigration” and “eradicating Islamist ideologies” are the two priorities of its manifesto. Le Pen, however, has tried to soften its tone, especially around Islam and the EU after Brexit. Instead, it has campaigned hard for pocket money, promising measures it claims will put € 150 to € 200 ($ 162 to $ 216) in each household’s coffers, including a commitment to abolish sales tax on 100 household items. The strategy seems to have worked. Le Pen’s performance in the first round of the 2022 presidential election was her best result in the three times she has run.
What are the biggest problems for French voters?
The cost of living is one of the top issues for the French electorate this year. Faced with the economic effects of the pandemic, high energy prices and the war in Ukraine, voters are feeling the sting, despite generous government support. While financial pressures may be insufficient to dispel the extremism of some candidates in the minds of voters, they may push some to seek unorthodox answers to their problems. The battles in Ukraine are far from the bistros and cafes of France, but the conflict is certainly in the minds of the voters. Only 90% of French people were worried about the war in the last week of March, according to Ifop. Given his opponents’ fragmentary record of enduring Putin, this has probably been in Macron’s favor so far. Particularly absent from the first round discussion was the environmental crisis. Although the importance of climate protection is gaining traction worldwide, it is less worrying in France, which supplied 75% of its electricity needs in 2020 from nuclear power, according to the French Environment Ministry. Most of the candidates in the first round supported the kind of nuclear development that Macron has already announced, so there is a small discrepancy on this issue. However, Macron and Le Pen have been battling for wind and solar power. Le Pen argues that both are expensive and inefficient – she also says wind turbines have marked the landscape of the traditional French countryside – so she wants to abolish subsidies for both. Macron wants to invest further in both technologies. The Macron and Le Pen campaigns promise two very different visions for the future of France. Macron promises to continue to move forward with a globalized, free-market-oriented France, led by a strong EU. But in the end, the election may only result in what candidate France dislikes the least: the president who is widely regarded as elitist and irrelevant, or the challenger best known for her inflammatory rhetoric in Islam and support for authoritarians.
