The French presidential election will be a repeat of the 2017 election campaign, when far-right Marine Le Pen ran against political newcomer Emmanuel Macron.
Macron won that race by almost two votes to one.
But while the candidates remain the same, the 2022 race is shaping up to be a very different matter.
Here’s everything you need to know.
How does the election work?
To elect their new president, French voters go to the polls twice.
In the first vote on Sunday, 12 candidates competed against each other. They qualified for the race by garnering the support of 500 mayors and/or local councils from across the country.
Macron and Le Pen received the most votes, but as neither received more than 50%, they will go to the runoff on Sunday April 24th.
This isn’t the only national vote France faces this year – general elections are also due in June.
What data do I need to know?
Macron and Le Pen will hold a debate on the evening of April 20th, which will be broadcast by French channels France 2 and TF1.
The run-off election will then take place on Sunday, April 24th.
Candidates are not allowed to campaign the day before the election or on the day itself, and the media are subject to strict coverage restrictions from the day before the election until polling closes at 8pm on Sunday in France.
What do the polls show?
A much tighter competition than the 2017 election.
Macron and Le Pen both increased their combined share of votes in this year’s first round compared to 2017, but polls ahead of the first round on April 10 showed Le Pen enjoyed a late rise in support in March.
An Ifop-Fiducial poll released on April 10 suggests Macron would win a second-round contest against Le Pen by just 51% to 49%. Macron’s lead has grown in the days since the results of the first round were announced, but two weeks is a long time in politics – and much could change before Election Day.
Political analysts often say that the French vote with their hearts in round one, then with their heads in round two – meaning they first pick their ideal candidate and then in the second round opt for the lesser of two evils.
Macron saw that game in 2017. He and Le Pen got 24% and 21.3% of the vote, respectively, on the first ballot, and then 66.1% and 33.9%, respectively, on the second ballot.
To be re-elected, Macron will likely need to persuade supporters of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon to support him. Melenchon came third with 22% of the vote. On Sunday, Melenchon told his supporters “we must not give Ms Le Pen a single vote,” but did not explicitly endorse Macron.
Most of the losing candidates urged their supporters to back Macron to prevent the far right from winning the presidency.
Eric Zemmour, a right-wing former TV pundit known for his inflammatory rhetoric, urged his supporters to back Le Pen.
What do the French expect?
The unexpected.
In early 2022, the election looked set to become an important referendum on the growing popularity of the French extreme right. It’s been 20 years since a French president was re-elected, making the election one of the country’s most watched political races in decades.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine.
With Europe’s eyes fixed on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody war, priorities have rapidly shifted: stockpiles of ammunition, high-level diplomacy and even the threat of a nuclear strike have become the subject of national debate.
Macron assumed the role of European statesman and took him out of the election campaign, while Le Pen was forced to rescind her earlier support for Putin.
What else has changed in the last five years?
France’s political landscape, for example.
Macron’s election effectively blasted the traditional center of French politics. In recent years, many of his constituents would have migrated to the traditional center-left and center-right parties, the Socialist and Republican.
But Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, and Valérie Pécresse, the Republican candidate, failed to persuade voters to dump the centre-right candidate already in office. Both were 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 contested.
But he is no longer an upstart and has a mixed record.
His ambitious plan to increase the autonomy and geopolitical weight of the European Union earned him respect at home and abroad, even if his attempts to win over Donald Trump or thwart the submarine deal with AUKUS, and his unsuccessful diplomatic efforts to avert war in Ukraine could be considered a failure.
Macron’s domestic politics are more divisive and less popular. His handling of the Yellow Vests movement, one of France’s longest-running protests in decades, has been widely panned and his accounts of the Covid-19 pandemic are inconclusive.
Macron’s signature policy during the crisis – requiring people to show proof of vaccination in order to continue living normally – helped boost vaccination rates but fueled a vocal minority against his presidency.
Before the first round of this election, Macron refused to debate with his opponents and barely campaigned himself. While his pole position in the race was never really threatened, experts say his strategy was to avoid the political mudslinging for as long as possible in order to keep his image as the most presidential candidate in focus.
Marine LePen is the best known figure of the French extreme right. She is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the Front National, the predecessor of Le Pen’s current political party.
The younger Le Pen has attempted to rebrand the party as it has long been seen as racist and anti-Semitic.
This is her third chance at the presidency. That year and 2017, she surpassed her father on the first ballot.
In 2017, Le Pen touted France’s answer to Trump: a right-wing arsonist who vowed to protect France’s forgotten working class from immigrants, globalization and technology making their jobs obsolete.
She has since abandoned some of her most controversial policy proposals, such as leaving the European Union.
But on the whole her economic nationalist stance, her views on immigration, her skepticism about Europe and her position on Islam in France – she wants to ban women from wearing headscarves in public – have not changed. “Stopping uncontrolled immigration” and “eradicating Islamist ideologies” are the two priorities of their manifesto.
However, Le Pen has tried to soften her tone, particularly on Islam and the post-Brexit EU.
Instead, she has lobbied heavily on paperback issues, promising measures she claims will put 150 to 200 euros ($162 to $216) in every household’s coffers, including a pledge to eliminate sales tax on 100 household goods .
The strategy seems to have worked.
Le Pen’s performance in the first round of the 2022 presidential election was her best result in her three candidacies.
What are the biggest problems for French voters?
The cost of living is one of the top issues for French voters this year. With the economic fallout from the pandemic, high energy prices and the war in Ukraine, voters are feeling the pinch despite generous government support.
While the financial pressures may not be enough to gloss over the extremism of some candidates in voters’ minds, it may lead some to seek unorthodox answers to their problems.
The fighting in Ukraine is a far cry from the bistros and cafes of France, but the conflict is certainly on the minds of voters. According to Ifop, almost 90% of the French were worried about the war in the last week of March. Given his challengers’ patchy record against Putin, this has likely worked in Macron’s favor so far.
In particular, the environmental crisis was missing from the debate in the first round. Although the importance of climate protection is growing globally, this is less of a concern in France, which relied on nuclear for 75% of its electricity needs in 2020, according to the French Environment Ministry. Most of the candidates in the first round supported the type of nuclear development Macron has already announced, so there is little disagreement on the issue.
However, Macron and Le Pen have fallen out over wind and solar energy. Le Pen argues that both are expensive and inefficient — she also says wind turbines have devastated the landscape of traditional French countryside — so she wants to scrap subsidies for both. Macron plans to continue investing in both technologies.
Macron and Le Pen’s campaigns promise two very different visions for France’s future.
Macron promises to keep moving forward with a globalized, free-market-focused France at the helm of a powerful EU. Le Pen wants to completely turn the status quo upside down with protectionist economic policies and a reshaping of Paris’s relationship with its allies and opponents.
But in the end, the election could simply boil down to whichever candidate France likes least: the president widely seen as elitist and outspoken, or the challenger best known for her inflammatory rhetoric on Islam and support for authoritarians.