France will vote for a new president in April, and the battle for positions among potential candidates is proceeding smoothly. The current president, Emmanuel Macron, Has not announced his candidacy, but is expected to run again. His second-round opponent in 2017, the far-right populist Marine Le Pen, has launched her campaign. Joining them on the ballot are Anne Hidalgo, Socialist candidate Yannick Jado (representing the Green Movement) and a center-right candidate who will be elected by the Republican Party on December 4. There is no party far-right TV commentator Eric Zemur to announce an outsider bid.
How the process works
Potential candidates must submit 500 signatures of elected officials supporting their campaign by March 4, which is required by law. Some politicians who wish to become candidates will withdraw from the field by then, but in 2017, 11 candidates participated in the formal voting.
The first round of voting will be held on April 10. If no candidate gets a majority of votes, a second round of run-off will be held two weeks later, with the participation of the two leading candidates in the first round.
Opinion polls show that the candidates most likely to enter the runoff are Macron and the far-right National Rally party leader Le Pen.
Who might be standing, and how do the polls rate their opportunities?
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Emmanuel Macron
March of the Republic
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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In 2017, the current president of France ran for and won without the support of major political parties, shocking the country’s political arena. The centrist Marche Republican Party he hurriedly assembled also won the parliamentary election that year. Macron is a former economic minister under the leadership of Socialist President François Hollande, and voters believe that he tends to be center-right during his administration.
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Marina Le Pen
National Assembly
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Le Pen led a public relations campaign to try to cleanse the image of the anti-immigration far-right National Front. She took over the National Front from her father in 2011 and changed her name to the National Assembly in 2018. The party’s score in the June regional elections was lower than expected after many traditional voters abstained. Le Pen is running for president for the third time and is running for the party’s traditional line of curbing immigration and “reserving France for the French.”
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Xavier Bertrand
independent
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Xavier Bertrand, Nicolas Sarkozy’s former minister, was recently re-elected as the head of the Hauts-de-France region in northern France. He left the Republican Party in 2017 and intends to run as an outsider to unite right-wing voters, from low-income workers to the bourgeoisie. He recently returned to the public and participated in a party vote on December 4 to select a candidate.
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Valerie Pecres
independent
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Pécresse was formerly the budget minister of Nicolas Sarkozy’s government and is currently the president of the Ile-de-France region, which includes the French capital and surrounding areas. She thinks it’s time to have the right to be a female candidate, and describes herself as “two-thirds of Angela Merkel and one-third of Margaret Thatcher”, which she said means We must be tough and economically focused while building consensus. She is participating in the Les Républicains internal competition to select a candidate on December 4.
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Michel Barnier
Republicans
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Barnier is the EU’s chief negotiator on Brexit issues, so he is widely known in the UK, but not so well in France. He has returned from Brussels to participate in the election campaign for the “Republic” newspaper. He argued that he has always been loyal to the party and can unite right-wing voters. He showed a strong stance on authority, justice and immigration issues, advocating the suspension of immigration and reaffirming France’s “sovereignty” over the European Court of Human Rights.
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Eric Zemo
independent
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Zemmour is a far-right television expert who has previously been convicted of inciting racial hatred and promoted controversial views, such as the “great replacement” theory that Muslim immigrants will “replace” the population of European countries. He has no political party and has not announced whether he will launch an external bid.
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Jean-Luc Melanchon
La France Insoumise (Unbowed France)
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Melangion is a former socialist who has represented various left-wing groups since leaving the party. He participated in the first two presidential elections and won more than 10% of the vote each time, surpassing the socialist candidates in 2017.
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Yannick Jado
Ecologist (Green Party)
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Jadot is a green candidate. In the 2017 presidential election, he stepped down to support socialist Benoît Hamon.
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Annie Hidalgo
socialist
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Hidalgo is the first female mayor of Paris and is currently in her second term. She is famous for the campaign to reduce the number of cars in the French capital. As a candidate for the President of the Socialist Party, she emphasized her working class and immigration roots, and promised to raise wages, especially teachers.
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Nicholas Dupont-Aignan
Standing in France (Rise of France)
The latest 7-day average (first round of preference):
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Dupont-Aignan is the leader of the nationalist Debout La France, a friend and fan of Nigel Farage, and supports France’s withdrawal from the European Union.
Also in dispute
The list also includes many other possible runners, most of whom usually have no more than 3% voter turnout in the survey. They include the former socialist Arnaud Montebourg, the Communist Party’s Fabien Roussel, and the Resistons’ Jean Lasalle! (Boycott!) Nathalie Arthaud of the Party and Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle).
What to do if you run away?
The French voting organization also asked respondents how they would vote in the hypothetical second round of voting. For obvious reasons, they focused on what seems most likely at the moment, which is the re-launch of the 2017 Macron-Le Pen vote.
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Emmanuel Macron v Marina Le Pen
This is the core scene, and therefore the most frequently investigated scene. Macron’s lead over Le Pen in the second round of voting was greater than his response to the first round of selection. In 2017, he inherited more than 70% of the votes of another first-round candidate.
