It’s election time in France. In two rounds of voting on April 10 and April 24, the people will decide who they want as President of the Republic for the next five years. If none of the candidates gets more than 50% of the vote in the first round, which is practically impossible in the country’s multi-party system, the top two will go on to run against each other in Round 2
In the run-up to the election, when the campaign normally dominates the news, the public’s attention is focused elsewhere — on Putin’s war in Ukraine. Polls show that the war has had a significant impact on the election with Macron surging into the lead, far ahead of the other candidates, making him the presumptive winner.
Twelve candidates have officially qualified to have their names placed on the ballot. Eight of them, included in the chart below, are polling with more than 2%. Note: The candidate’s political leaning is color-coded according to French custom:
- red for the Left (darker red further Left),
- blue for the Right (darker blue further Right),
- orange for Macron who is considered a centrist,
- brown for the neo-fascist candidate Éric Zemmour
- green for Yannick Jadot, the Greens candidate.
Before Putin’s war, Macron was already in the lead and three candidates were locked in a tie for the second slot to compete against him in Round 2:
- Marine Le Pen – the far-right politician who finished third in 2012 and second in 2017;
- Éric Zemmour – an even farther-right TV show host competing for Le Pen’s voters and siphoning support away from her;
- Valérie Pécresse – the center-right candidate of the Républicains, positioned as the heir to former President Nicolas Sarkozy who was convicted for fraud and corruption and refused to endorse her.
Counting two more rightwingers polling under 2% each, simple math would suggest that this is a crowded field on the right and in the competition for limited space on the political spectrum, the candidates tore each other apart.
Éric Zemmour —
Zemmour’s campaign peaked early. Before he announced as a candidate, he was a media favorite. TV talkers built a mountain of anticipation behind him, with endless speculation about whether he would run.
In interviews, he stole Le Pen’s thunder by reciting fascist ideology like the Great Replacement, a white supremacist belief that Europe’s future is being threatened by immigrant invaders. (The cartoon on the front page of Libération, to the right, shows him siphoning support away from Le Pen.)
When Zemmour declared as a candidate, the reality didn’t match the expectation. He made his announcement in a video that was supposed to recreate the radio speech that Charles de Gaulle gave on June 18, 1940, calling on the French people to resist the Nazis. Zemmour was mocked and ridiculed for that. It was all too obvious that he could never hope to fill de Gaulle’s shoes. To top it off, Zemmour was found guilty of copyright infringement last week for the torrent of images that were used in the video without permission. www.france24.com/… His campaign has been a series of missteps.
Since the war in Ukraine began, the pro-Putin statements Zemmour made in the past have been coming back to haunt him and it’s not clear that he has changed his mind. He continues to recite Kremlin propaganda, He says that under his ‘Zero Immigration’ policy, Ukrainian refugees would be kept out of France. And his numbers have begun to slide.
Valérie Pécresse — is the President of the Île-de-France region, an elected office comparable to Governor of New York in the States. The Île-de-France includes the city of Paris and the surrounding area.
Her party, Les Républicains is known for corruption scandals. Former Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy were both found guilty of corruption and fraud and so was the party’s 2017 nominee, François Fillon. Everywhere Pécresse goes, the four men she defeated in the party primary appear at her side, either as an awkward show of unity, or to stab her in the back with their bizarre statements. The Républicains are like that.
In terms of policy, the Républicains are similar to the US Republicans pre-Trump. They want to lower taxes and cut government spending by eliminating 150,000 jobs, privatize the public sector and eliminate regulations. Pécresse is running to the right, borrowing from Zemmour’s anti-immigrant proposals, a turn-off for her base, and like Zemmour, her numbers are sliding.
Marine Le Pen —
Of all the candidates, Le Pen carries the heaviest burden from a past association with Putin. Everyone remembers how she flew to Moscow five years ago, in the middle of the 2017 Presidential election campaign, to have her photo taken, shaking hands with Putin in the Kremlin.
Now, she’s trying to scrub that association from her past, the same way she tried to scrub the fascism from her party’s roots.
In the tweet below, TV show host, Ruth Elkrief, asks her if she regrets the photo. Le Pen says:
“The Vladimir Putin of today is not the one of five years ago. He made decisions that I have condemned. But the fact remains that Russia is still a neighbor, faraway, and a European country. We must find ways to set aside arms.”
Of the three rightwingers competing for second place in Round 1, she’s the one who’s ahead. Is it possible that the other two candidates are so bad, that they make her look good?
It’s possible that, by standing so far to the right, Éric Zemmour has done more to mainstream and normalize Le Pen than she could ever do, herself. Whatever the reason, it looks like Le Pen is likely to grab the #2 position in the first round of voting. That would mean a Round 2 rematch of the election five years ago. Polls indicate that she would run ahead of her 2017 vote total and still lose to Macron 59 to 41. In 2017, he won by 66 to 34.
The chart shows how Macron’s margins in hypothetical Round 2 matchups have increased since February 1. Valérie Pécresse who had the best chance against Macron with a 7 point deficit five weeks ago, now trails by 23 points. Since Zemmour would have no chance of winning in Round 2, some of his followers may decide to vote strategically for Le Pen or Pécresse instead.
For readers who are interested in knowing more, Le Monde is running a series about the election, in English. The reporting is excellent. www.lemonde.fr/...
Here are a few moments from the campaign, so far:
December 4, 2021: Anti-racism protesters show up at a campaign rally for Éric Zemmour and a brawl erupts.
January 21, 2022 : a headline on the front page of Le Monde - Competing in a crowded political space against Le Pen and Zemmour, “Valérie Pécresse tries to stand out on the Right.”
Former Justice Minister Christiane Taubira wins the People’s Primary for candidates on the Left. Sadly, she didn’t qualify to have her name placed on the ballot because she was unable to collect the necessary 500 sponsorship signatures from elected officials.
An overflow crowd shows up for a Jean-Luc Mélenchon rally in Bordeaux.
Greens Party candidate Yannick Jadot campaigns during the party’s primary.