France’s presidential election will be a rematch of the 2017 race, when far-right Marine Le Pen faced political newcomer Emmanuel Macron.
Macron won this race by almost two votes to one.
But while the candidates remain the same, the race in 2022 looks like a very different affair.
Here’s everything you need to know.
How are the elections going?
To elect their new president, French voters go to the polls twice.
In Sunday’s first vote, 12 candidates are fighting each other. They qualified for the race, receiving approval from 500 mayors and / or local councilors across the country.
Macron and Le Pen received the most votes, but since neither of them won more than 50%, they will go to the runoff on Sunday, April 24.
This is not the only national vote France is facing this year – parliamentary elections are due in June.
What dates do I need to know?
Macron and Le Pen will hold a debate on the evening of April 20, which will be broadcast by French television broadcasters France 2 and TF1.
The run-off will then take place on Sunday, April 24.
Candidates are not allowed to campaign on the day before the election or on election day itself, and the media will be subject to strict restrictions on coverage from the day before the election until the polls close at 8 pm on Sunday in France.
What do the polls show?
Much closer competition than the 2017 elections
Macron and Le Pen increased their combined share of votes in this year’s first round compared to 2017, but polls before the first round on April 10 showed that Le Pen enjoyed a late influx of support in March.
An Ifop-Fiducial poll, published on April 10, predicts that Macron will win the second round against Le Pen by only 51% to 49%. Macron’s advantage increased in the days after receiving the results of the first round, but two weeks is a long time in politics – and a lot can change from now until election day.
Political analysts often say that the French vote with their heart in the first round, then vote with their head in the second round – which means they first choose their ideal candidate, 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 votes in the first round, respectively, and then 66.1% and 33.9% in the second round.
In order to be re-elected, Macron will probably have to persuade supporters of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon to support him. Melenchon is in third place with 22% of the vote. On Sunday, Melanchon told his supporters “we must not give a single vote to Mrs Le Pen”, but did not explicitly support Macron.
Most of the losing candidates called on their supporters to support Macron to block the far right from winning the presidency.
Eric Zemmour, a right-wing former television expert known for his provocative rhetoric, called on his supporters to support Le Pen.
What do the French expect?
The unexpected.
In early 2022, the election seemed to be an important referendum on the growing popularity of the French far right. It has been 20 years since the French president was re-elected, so the vote has emerged as one of the most watched political contests in the country for decades.
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.
Macron took on the role of European statesman, moving him away from the election trail, while Le Pen was forced to give up his previous support for Putin.
What else has changed in the last five years?
The political landscape of France, for example.
Macron’s election effectively blew up the traditional center of French politics. In previous years, many of his constituents would flock to traditional center-left and center-right parties, the Socialists and the Republicans.
But Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, and Valerie Pecres, the Republican candidate, failed to persuade voters to abandon the centrist candidate, who is already in office. Both voted below 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 the most elite schools in France. He was a political novice before becoming president, and this is only the second political election he has ever run.
But it is no longer a new start and he has to work with a mixed record.
His ambitious plan to strengthen the autonomy and geopolitical weight of the European Union has earned him respect abroad and at home, although his attempts to win Donald Trump or prevent the AUKUS submarine deal and his failed diplomatic efforts to prevent war in Ukraine may consider failures.
Macron’s domestic policies are more divisive and less popular. His attitude to the yellow vest movement, one of the longest-running protests in France in decades, has been widely criticized, and his record of the Covid-19 pandemic is unconvincing.
Macron’s signature policy during the crisis – requiring people to provide proof of vaccination in order to lead a normal life – helped increase the vaccination rate, but sparked a minority vote against his presidency.
Before the first round of this election, 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 to keep the focus on his image as the most presidential of all candidates.
Marine 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 Le Pen tried to rebrand the party, as it had long been considered racist and anti-Semitic.
This is her third shot in the presidency. This year and in 2017, she overtook her father in the first round of voting.
In 2017, Le Pen campaigned in response to Trump’s France: a right that vowed to protect France’s forgotten working class from immigrants, globalization and technology that made their work obsolete.
She has since abandoned some of her most controversial political proposals, such as leaving the European Union.
But overall, her economic nationalist stance, her views on immigration, her skepticism of Europe and her stance 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 her manifesto.
However, Le Pen tried to soften his tone, especially around Islam and the EU after Brexit.
Instead, she is running an intensified campaign on pocket books, promising measures she claims will invest 150 euros to 200 euros ($ 162 to $ 216) in each household’s coffers, including a promise to abolish sales tax on 100 goods. for everyday life.
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 ran.
What are the biggest problems for French voters?
The cost of living is one of the most important issues for the French electorate this year. Faced with the economic consequences of the pandemic, high energy prices and the war in Ukraine, voters are feeling the pinch, despite generous government support.
While financial pressure may not be enough to whiten the extremism of some candidates in the minds of voters, they may encourage some to seek unorthodox answers to their problems.
The fighting in Ukraine is far from the bistros and cafes of France, but the conflict is certainly in the minds of voters. Only shyly, 90 percent of French people have been worried about the war in the last week of March, according to Ifop. Given the uneven experience of his rivals in opposing Putin, this has probably played in Macron’s favor so far.
The ecological crisis was remarkably absent from the debate in the first round. Although the importance of climate protection is gaining popularity worldwide, it is less of a concern in France, which provides 75% of its electricity needs in 2020 from nuclear energy, according to the French Ministry of the Environment. Most candidates in the first round supported the type of nuclear development that Macron has already announced, so there is little disagreement on this issue.
However, Macron and Le Pen argued over wind and solar energy. Le Pen claims both are expensive and inefficient – she also says wind turbines have marked the landscape of the traditional French countryside – so she wants to cut subsidies for both. Macron wants to invest more in both technologies.
The campaigns of Macron and Le Pen promise two very different visions for the future of France.
Macron promises to move forward with a globalized, free-market-focused France at the head of a powerful EU. Le Pen wants to completely change the status quo with protectionist economic policies and renew Paris’ relations with its allies and opponents.
But in the end, the election may simply be a matter of which candidate France dislikes the least: the president, who is considered elitist and out of touch, or the contender best known for her provocative rhetoric about Islam and support for authoritarianism.
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