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The French will go to the polls in the first round of the presidential elections on Sunday. Centrist President Emmanuel Macron and his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen are expected to be the top two, who would then qualify for a second round in two weeks.
Emmanuel Macron, France’s President, speaks during an address to citizens and elected officials in Spezat, France April 5, 2022. Although polls point to a victory for Macron, the latest daily polls show the gap with Marine Le Pen is closing . (Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
That would be the same pairing as in 2017 when Macron easily defeated Le Pen. But some analysts are now predicting it could be much closer this time.
“The majority of French people want change,” said Christian Malard, a leading French political scientist and commentator for I24 News.
Macron’s handling of COVID-19 and his Ukrainian diplomacy have not helped him overcome real unpopularity. As a reform-oriented technocrat, he has been haunted by the label “unapproachable” for years. The “yellow vest” street protests of 2018 centered around claims that Macron did not understand the problems facing the population.
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“A lot of people feel abandoned and despised by him,” observed Malard.
For her part, Le Pen has “buffed off” some of her “harder edges” on issues like immigration and Islam, Malard said. It targets more “kitchen table” issues such as inflation, which is hitting France hard, as elsewhere. It also doesn’t hurt that the French electorate has shifted to the right.
Campaign posters on billboards next to a polling station in Paris on April 4, 2022. (Antoine Gyori/Corbis via Getty Images)
“She managed to soften a bad image,” says Malard.
A late poll puts Macron at just 51% to Le Pen’s 49% in a possible runoff, within margin of error.
France’s economy is the second largest in the European Union, it is the only EU member with nuclear weapons and one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
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What would a Le Pen presidency mean for France’s relations with the world? It would certainly not help with the European Union. She has long been a critic of Brussels and would ally herself with other far-right leaders in Europe such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party leader and Member of Parliament Marine Le Pen addresses the press at the party’s headquarters after the first results in the second round of France’s regional elections in Nanterre June 27, 2021. (Geoffroy Van Der Hasset/AFP/via Getty Images)
As for America’s “oldest” foreign alliance? “I think she would be tougher on the US,” Malard said. “She was always on Trump’s side.”
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Still, the French have a habit of casting a “protest vote” in the first round of presidential elections, and then “pinch your nose” and play it safe in the second round. That would point to another five-year term for Macron.
Judging from past meetings, that would likely be an outcome President Biden would be happy with. At the age of 44, Macron would certainly be ready for it. In just over two weeks, we’ll see if France is.