The French are going to the polls this Sunday (24th) to repeat the round of 16 from 2017: the centrist Emmanuel Macron is considered the favorite and, according to polls, should secure a second term against the rightwing extremist Marine Le Pen.
However, five years later, France is not the same country.
Social protests shaped the first half of the Macron government, a global pandemic has locked millions in their homes, and the Russian offensive in Ukraine has severely shaken the European continent.
The ongoing war in Eastern Europe permeated the election campaign, although “purchasing power was the main concern,” Ipsos France’s Mathieu Gallard told France Bleu Radio, for whom there was “a strong disenchantment” among the population, which is reflected in the election campaign.
In 2017, Emmanuel Macron won the second round in France with 66% of the vote. That year, shortly after the exit polls were released, Marine Le Pen conceded defeat.
1 of 3 official campaign posters of the candidates for the 2022 French presidential election, French President Emmanuel Macron, candidate for his reelection, and Marine Le Pen, candidate of the farright French Rally National (Rassemblement National), are displayed in an official billboard in HeninBeaumont , France — Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman
Official campaign posters of the candidates for the 2022 French presidential election, French President Emmanuel Macron, candidate for his reelection, and Marine Le Pen, candidate for the farright French Rally National (Rassemblement National), are displayed on an official billboard in HeninBeaumont, France — Photo: Reuters/Yves Herman
Polls on Friday (22), the last day the law allows disclosure, indicated Macron should be victorious again, but by a smaller margin. Below are some projections:
- Emmanuel Macron (On the March): 55.5%
- Marine Le Pen (National Assembly): 44.5%
- Emmanuel Macron (On the March): 55%
- Marine Le Pen (National Assembly): 45%
- Emmanuel Macron (On the March): 57%
- Marine Le Pen (National Assembly): 43%
However, Macron’s victory should not be taken as a certainty: in the last election in 2017, the polls missed the result by nine percentage points.
2 of 3 Marine Le Pen in the election campaign, on April 22, 2022 — Photo: Denis Charlet / AFP
Marine Le Pen campaigning on April 22, 2022 — Photo: Denis Charlet / AFP
3 of 3 Emmanuel Macron on his final campaign day, April 22, 2022 — Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP
Emmanuel Macron on his final campaign day, April 22, 2022 — Photo: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP
If he wins again, Macron will rule a divided country as a significant proportion of his constituents vote for him simply because of a lack of choices, according to a BVA poll. 66 percent want him to lose his parliamentary majority in the June elections. .
Days later, in a sign of disillusionment with the first round, the students temporarily occupied the iconic Sorbonne University.
Many young people, as well as some Mélenchon voters, denounce the social and environmental balance of Macron’s fiveyear tenure, but also fear that the extreme right will come to power.
“Voting for Macron is not based on improving the situation of the French, but on the ability to manage crises, to face crises in a world that the French know is increasingly unstable,” Gallard analyzed.
Macron made the argument of having been a stable and reformist president in times of crisis. Le Pen chose to present herself as a defender of the purchasing power of the French amid concerns about rising energy and food prices.
Nearly 49 million French people have a choice about which France they want by 2027, a decision that could mean a shift in the international alliances of this nuclear and economic powerhouse if the Front National’s heir is elected.
Le Pen proposes adding “national priority” to the constitution to exclude foreigners from state welfare payments and defends the abandonment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) integrated command and the reduction of the powers of the European Union (EU).
The outgoing president, on the other hand, is committed to “more Europe” both on economic and social issues and in defense and wants to regain his reformist and liberal impulse with his proposal to postpone the retirement age from 62 to 65 years old. .
Polling stations open this Sunday (24th) at 8 a.m. local time (3 a.m. in Brasília). Due to the time difference, the overseas territories and the French in the Americas have already started voting earlier. The last stations close at 8pm in France (3pm in Brasília). The first results are already expected from there.