The French voted this Sunday to elect a president, with the outgoing president, the centrist Emmanuel Macron, and the far-right Marine Le Pen as favorites in a tight first round, after an atypical campaign.
The launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24 hid the electoral campaign, but the effect on energy prices brought it back to the fore in the final stretch, mainly due to concerns about purchasing power, the main concern of the French.
“It is important to vote because we are in a particularly difficult context (…), to choose the best possible option, the person who will lead our country for five yearsMamadou Alpha Diallo, a 35-year-old civil servant, told AFP after voting in Saint-Denis, north of Paris.
The election, which will set France’s course until 2027, will also be followed closely at the international level, especially when the latest polls on Friday give Macron and Le Pen the ballot on April 24. The far-right candidate also has options to win.
The start of the war promoted the candidate of The Republic on the Move (LREM), who played the trick of mediation between kyiv and Moscow and the stability of a Europeanist president who went through several crises: social protests, pandemic and now the effects of the Russian offensive in the Ukraine.
The results will be known after one in the afternoon, Colombia time, when the last schools close.
His rival from the National Group (RN) opted to present himself as the defender of purchasing power and the popular classes, against a Macron “president of the rich”, but his international program would imply changes in France’s international alliances if he is elected. .
Among other things, Le Pen proposes abandoning the NATO integrated command, the body of the Atlantic Alliance that sets military strategy. His election could also deal a new setback to the European Union (EU), after the re-election of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban.
Of the ten remaining candidates, the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who advocates leaving NATO and a “non-aligned” France, is the only one with a chance of preventing either of them from getting their ticket to the second round, reinforced by its “useful vote” image of an atomized left.
Doubts about participation
The results will be known after one in the afternoon, Colombia time, when the last schools close. In addition to the result, another question is knowing how many of the 48.7 million voters went to the polls.
Participation in the first round at noon in France was 65%, 4.4 points less than in 2017 at that time and 6.55 points more than in 2002, the year with the record for abstention in a presidential election, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.
The year 2002 is the example of surprises in the first round. Then, the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, went against all odds to the runoff along with the conservative Jacques Chirac, who ended up getting re-elected.
Marine Le Pen, 53, and Emmanuel Macron, 44, already disputed the keys to the Elysee in 2017, which the centrist won with two thirds of the votes. But although the scenario seems to repeat itself five years later, the country is not the same.
The coronavirus broke out in France in early 2020, confining millions of people and leaving behind a first half of Macron’s term marked by social protests. The war in the Ukraine appeared when the French began to breathe.
The centrist candidate acknowledged “mistakes” during his first term, especially for his controversial phrases that made him seem arrogant, and reaffirmed his liberal reformist impetus, reviving his unpopular proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 years.
With the traditional far-right measures on the agenda, such as reserving welfare benefits for the French, Marine Le Pen softened her speech to try to capitalize on social discontent with Macron. Her far-right rival Éric Zemmour helped her appear less radical.
“Republican Front”
As the heiress of the National Front progressed in the polls, the president, who entered the campaign late, warned in the final stretch against the “extremist danger. Experts doubt whether the cordon sanitaire around the extreme right will work as it did in 2017 and 2022.
For the director of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, Gilles Finchelstein, the traditional “republican front” of parties will not be enough to isolate Le Pen in the second round, since, although this system has not disappeared, it is worn out.
Socialist candidates Anne Hidalgo, ecologist Yannick Jadot and communist Fabien Roussel have already said they will call for a vote against the extreme right if Le Pen goes to the ballot. Valérie Pécresse of the Republican Party (LR) will not give a vote slogan instead.
In France, attention will also be on the scope of the expected debacle of the traditional parties: the right wing of former presidents Chirac (1995-2007) and Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) and the socialists of François Hollande (2012-2017). and Francois Mitterrand (1981-1995).
AFP
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