France will vote to elect a new president in April, and the race for positions between potential candidates is well underway. The current president, Emmanuel Macron, has not yet declared his candidacy but is expected to run again. His opponent in the second round of 2017, the far-right populist Marine Le Pen, has already launched his campaign. At their side at the polls, Anne Hidalgo, the socialist candidate Yannick Jadot, representing the Greens, and a center-right candidate, who will be chosen by The Republicans on December 4. The far-right television specialist Eric Zemmour, who has no political party, could declare an external offer.
How the process works
Potential candidates have until March 4 to present the 500 signatures of elected officials supporting their candidacy, as required by law. Some of the politicians hoping to be candidates will then have withdrawn from the field, but in 2017, 11 candidates were on the official ballot.
A first round is due to take place on April 10, and in the probable event that neither candidate obtains a majority of the votes, a second round will take place two weeks later, featuring both candidates leading the first round.
Polls have shown that the candidates most likely to run in the second round are Macron and Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement national (Rassemblement national) party.
Who might show up, and how do polls assess their chances?
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Emmanuel Macron
The Republic on the march
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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The current French president rocked the country’s political scene in 2017 when he ran without the backing of a major party and won. His hastily assembled centrist Republic en Marche party also won that year’s legislative elections. Macron, former Minister of the Economy under Socialist President François Hollande, is seen by voters as having leaned towards the center-right in power.
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Marine Le Pen
National Gathering (National Gathering)
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Le Pen carried out a public relations campaign to try to clean up the image of the far-right anti-immigration National Front, which she succeeded her father in 2011 and renamed Rassemblement national in 2018. The party’s score to June’s regional elections were lower than expected after many of its traditional voters abstained. Le Pen, in his third presidential bid, is campaigning along the party’s traditional line of curbing immigration and “keeping France for the French”.
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Xavier Bertrand
Independent
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Xavier Bertrand, former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy, was recently reelected at the head of the Hauts-de-France region in northern France. He left the Republicans party in 2017 and intended to campaign as a foreigner capable of uniting right-wing voters, from low-income workers to the bourgeoisie. He recently returned to the fold to participate in the party’s internal vote on December 4 to choose a candidate.
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Valerie Pécresse
Independent
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Pécresse was Budget Minister under Nicolas Sarkozy and is currently president of the Ile-de-France region, which includes the French capital and its surroundings. She argues that it’s time for the right to have a woman candidate and describes herself as “two-thirds Angela Merkel and one-third Margaret Thatcher,” which she says means being tough and focused. economy while building consensus. She is running in the Republicans’ internal race to nominate a candidate on December 4.
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Michel barnier
The Republicans
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Barnier was the EU’s main Brexit negotiator, and is therefore well known in Britain, but less so in France. He returned from Brussels to run for the election of a candidate for Les Républicains. He maintains that he has always been loyal to the party and that he can unite right-wing voters. He presented a hard line on authority, justice and immigration, arguing for a moratorium on immigration and a reaffirmation of French “sovereignty” vis-à-vis the European Court of Human Rights. .
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Eric Zemmour
Independent
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Zemmour is a far-right television expert who has previously been convicted of inciting racial hatred and who promotes controversial views such as the “great replacement” theory that Muslim immigrants will “replace” populations in European countries. . It does not have a political party and has yet to declare whether it will launch an outside bid.
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Jean-Luc Mélenchon
France rebellious
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Mélenchon is a former socialist who has defended various leftist groups since leaving the party. He stood for the two previous presidential elections, each time winning more than 10% of the vote, and more than the Socialist candidate in 2017.
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Yannick Jadot
Environmentalists (Greens)
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Jadot is the Green candidate. In the 2017 presidential election, he withdrew in favor of the socialist Benoît Hamon.
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Anne Hidalgo
socialists
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Hidalgo is the first female mayor of Paris and is in her second term. She is best known for her campaign to reduce the number of cars in the French capital. A presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, she highlighted her working-class and immigrant roots, promising to improve salaries, especially for teachers.
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Nicolas Dupont-Aignan
Standing La France (Arise France)
Last 7-day average (first round preferences):
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Dupont-Aignan, the leader of the nationalist Debout La France, is a friend and fan of Nigel Farage and supports a French exit from the EU.
Also in contention
The list also includes many other possible runners, most of whom typically fail to poll more than 3% in polls. Among them, the former socialist Arnaud Montebourg, Fabien Roussel of the Communist Party, Jean Lasalle des Resistons! (Resist!) And Nathalie Arthaud from Lutte Ouvrière (Lutte Ouvrière).
What about runoff?
French pollsters also ask people how they would vote in a hypothetical second round. For obvious reasons, they are focusing on what currently appears to be the most likely scenario, a repeat of the Macron-Le Pen vote of 2017.
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Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen
This is the basic scenario, and therefore the most frequently questioned. Macron’s lead over Le Pen is larger in the polls in the second round than in the answers to the first round picks. In 2017, he inherited more than 70% of the votes of the other candidate in the first round.
