From this Monday, March 28, and until April 9, the official campaign of all the candidates for the Presidency of France will be extended, elections that until now have been relegated to global attention due to the war in Ukraine. President Emmanuel Macron and the leader of the extreme right, Marine Le Pen, lead the voting intention polls for the first round to be held on Sunday, April 10. A second electoral round is expected on the 24th of the same month.
The race for who will occupy the Elysée Palace for the next five years officially begins, in the midst of a context marked by the war in Ukraine, the economic effects left by the Covid-19 pandemic and the social crisis.
In addition, the electoral contest is sealed by a strong struggle between the right and the extreme right of the country, while the left explodes into fractions, where none of its presidential candidates has managed to prevail among the electorate so far, according to polls.
12 people aspire to the Executive Gallic: eight men and four women. Among them are the current president, Emmanuel Macron, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the conservative Valérie Pécresse, the far-right Éric Zemmour, the leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the socialist and mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and the environmentalist Yannick Jadot.
If no candidate obtains the majority of the votes in the first round next Sunday, April 10, a second round scheduled for April 24 will be necessary.
Macron and Le Pen star in the presidential dispute
When the clock ticks less than two weeks before the elections, the first two positions that would face each other in the second round on April 24 seem to be already defined.
According to a survey released this weekend by the newspaper ‘Le Parisien’, the current head of state, Emmanuel Macron leads the voting intentions with 28.5% support, followed by the far-right Marine Le Pen, with 17.5%who returns to the race with an anti-immigrant and eurosceptic speech.
If these intentions were transferred to the polls, the scenario of the 2017 elections would be repeated when Macron finally prevailed over the deputy and member of the Agrupación Nacional party.
But Le Pen is not willing to let that history repeat itself. “What I want is not to go to the second, but to win. I think that in the next five years the population deserves something better than Macron’s policy of social looting, something better than seeing their purchasing power sink,” said the leader on Sunday, March 27 on local television.
Beyond his current actions as president, for Macron the main challenge in the campaign lies in positioning himself as a candidate and not giving the impression that he underestimates the process, especially after announcing that he would not participate in the debates.
You will have to balance between holding power and also making it clear that you want to keep it.
Despite the president’s advantage in the polls, none would obtain more than 50% of the votes necessary to declare himself the winner in a single election day.
The left is relegated in the competition
The candidates of the progressive wing play far from qualifying for the second round and until now they have not been able to unite to promote a single strong candidacy.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is emerging as its main candidate. Although she has between 12 and 15% support in the polls, she remains hoping to qualify for a second round.
However, the radical left politician has the challenge of convincing supporters of a moderate left and dragging possible votes among abstentionists.
Even further from the first places, is the environmentalist Yannick Jadot, who barely manages to break the 10% ceiling in voting intention.
Macron condemns the violence of his political rivals
At the official start of the campaign, the French president took aim at his far-right rival Eric Zemour, who has around 10% favorability in the polls. This Monday during a visit to a school in Dijon, in the east of the country, in a classic pre-election tour, the president reproached his rivals who, according to him, lose their temper and fall into violence.
“There are political leaders who, effectively, are only prone to violence and insults, and I believe that this is not good for the country, that is why the candidate that I am fights them, but he fights them with dignity, with respect, because that It is what democracy demands. Those who lose their temper for being violent, for insulting, for threatening, are bad for democracy and the Republic, whatever program they promote, because they justify those consequences and then come to deplore verbal or physical violence,” Macron assured. .
🗣”Il ne faut jamais s’habituer à l’incivisme, à l’irrespect et à la haine. Sinon les légitime. Ce qu’impose la démocratie, c’est le respect.”
❌ À Dijon, face à l’indignité d’Eric Zemmour, @EmmanuelMacron I deplore the insults and menaces who are mauvaises pour la République. pic.twitter.com/vrFxxEpyK3
— Anne-Laurence Petel (@al_petel) March 28, 2022
His statements came after being questioned about the images that circulated over the weekend of a Zemmour rally in Paris, in which the crowd chanted “Murderer Macron”, while the anti-immigration politician criticized the Government for allowing the entry of “criminals”. ” foreigners to the country.
Macron’s allies have criticized Zemmour for not condemning the chants, while the far-right’s team has said he did not hear them.
“There are two theories: the first is that it is a shameful act, which seems to be the most credible, but it is not a surprise (…) The second is that there is a lack of knowledge of a very important reform during my term,” Macron replied to the press.
In general, the rest of the candidates condemned Zemmour’s position and some citizens stressed that the campaign is also being framed for “extremism” and “vulgarity”.
France, between abstention and electoral apathy
A survey published by ‘Le Parisien’ indicates that abstention could reach 33%, which would mean a record for non-participation in presidential elections. In the first round of 2017 it was 21.3%, and in 2012, 20.5%.
Some agree that the run-up to the elections has been overwhelmed by the attention inside and outside the country of global problems such as the war in Ukraine, the energy and trade complications that arise in Europe due to the conflict, which add to the already vulnerabilities left to the economy by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Others highlight the apparent certainty that Emmanuel Macron will repeat as President. Macron starts as the favourite, but a cold electoral dispute looms, overshadowed by a broad popular abstention greater than at any other time in the country’s recent history.
With AFP, EFE and AP
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