5 keys to analyzing the elections in France

If the polls materialize, French voters will begin this Sunday, April 10, the two-stage process of electing a president.

A lot has changed since Emmanuel Macron became president in 2017: a global pandemic and a major conflagration in Europe top the list. However, the vote is likely to lead to another confrontation between Macron and far-right wannabe Marine Le Pen, despite the presence of new faces in the election campaign. A second round of voting is expected on April 24.

The Conversation published a guide to what to watch in the elections held by Garret Martin of the American University.

1- When a national vote is not enough

April 10 will be just the first of a series of votes to be held in France in the coming weeks. In the first round of the presidential elections, voters will decide between 12 official candidates, including favorites Macron and Le Pen.

If neither candidate gets more than 50% of the votes - a result that is very likely - the two main candidates qualify for a runoff scheduled for April 24. In that second round, the most voted candidate will become president.

But the vote will not end there. The French public will again be called to vote in two rounds of parliamentary elections currently scheduled for June 12 and 19.

These parliamentary elections are just as crucial as those for the election of the president. Whoever wins the presidency will depend on securing a majority of support in parliament to implement its program.

But if Macron wins re-election, he may be tempted to dissolve parliament the next day, which would mean holding the elections two weeks ahead of schedule. This could hypothetically give him the opportunity to capitalize on the momentum of the presidential election to elect a parliament aligned with its agenda.

2- The disappearance of the mainstream

One key thing to observe in the first round of voting is how well - or badly - the establishment parties in France do.

Until 2017, French politics were dominated by two parties: the left-wing Socialist Party and the conservative Les Républicains. Candidates from either of these two parties have won every presidential election since 1958.

And then came the political earthquake of 2017. In those elections, neither party even qualified for the second round. The candidate from Les Républicains was displaced to the second round by Le Pen and the socialist candidate could barely collect more than 6% of the votes.

In 2017, Emmanuel Macron won the first round and went on to the second. He did so at the helm of a new party, La République En Marche. Macron positioned himself at the center of the political spectrum, taking away oxygen from the two established parties.

Five years later, the polls confirm the disappearance of these two hitherto dominant political parties. Barring a major surprise, the Socialist Party and Les Républicains will again be left out of the second round. Current forecasts suggest that less than 10% of voters will opt for Valérie Pécresse, from Les Républicains, and just 2% for Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor of Paris.

A catastrophic result in the first round could mean the end of these two matches.

3- And the rise of extremes

Macron's capture of the political center is only half the story. The disappearance of traditional parties in France has been helped by the growth of political extremes, with more voters gravitating to the far left and right.

But for the first time in recent French political history, the far-right camp is divided between two candidates, veteran presidential candidate Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, a television expert and journalist who has come out as the far right's insurgent candidate in the 2022 elections.

In one-round votes, such a division could hurt the right-wing's chances of electoral success, but that is not the case here. The polls suggest that Le Pen and Éric Zemmour together will attract about a third of the votes. And Le Pen is very likely to qualify for the runoff against Macron, during which he can be expected to pick up the majority of Zemmour's voters.

Zemmour's campaign — with its fiery rhetoric and extreme views on migration — has helped in many ways, and it hasn't hurt Le Pen. He has reinforced Le Pen's strategy of “normalization” in recent years, with which he has tried to improve the image of his party and make it look more respectable.

As Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at the Sciences-Po University in Paris, explained in a recent article in The Guardian: “Eric Zemmour's radicality has softened the image of Marine Le Pen”.

The apparent success of Le Pen's strategy is seen in the tightening of the career. The polls predict only a narrow advantage for Macron in the event of a runoff against Le Pen. In 2017, by comparison, Macron overthrew Le Pen in the second round, winning 66% of the vote.

Meanwhile, on the left, the radical wing has also been on the rise. The veteran politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in his third presidential campaign, is the clear standard-bearer of the left. With its focus on inequality and the rising cost of living, it has firmly placed third in the polls, with about 17% of the expected votes.

Mélenchon is unlikely to displace Macron or Le Pen in the second round. But even so, a third place will give further proof that French voters are gravitating away from the political center.

4- La sombra de Putin

The French elections are set against the backdrop of the war in Europe, which has given voters the opportunity to review the candidates' record on Russia.

Macron aside, many of the top candidates have shown a record of complacency towards Putin, prior to the invasion of Ukraine. Mélenchon, with his strong ideological animosity towards the United States, called Russia a partner in early 2022. For his part, Zemmour called Putin a “patriot” who defends Russian interests. And Le Pen prominently placed a photo of him with Putin in the campaign brochures, in an apparent attempt to highlight his international stature.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, most of these candidates have somewhat changed their tone towards Russia and Putin, or have turned to other issues. Le Pen, for example, has refocused its campaign towards increasing the cost of living and the impact of sanctions on energy prices. And current polls do not suggest that they will have a significant impact on voters because of their past flirtations with the Russian president. At least, it doesn't seem to stop Le Pen from being back in the second round, despite Macron's recent attempts to draw attention to the perception of his opponents' “leniency towards Vladimir Putin”.

5- La abstención

As the seemingly limited impact of the candidates' attitude towards Putin suggests, the war in Ukraine is not at the peak of the concerns of most voters.

With record inflation in the eurozone - reaching 5.1% this year - the rise in the cost of living has become a major source of concern for many French people. This is compounded by other economic difficulties, such as high energy and housing costs. And the challenges of the pocket are also combined with other hot debates around the environment and immigration.

Although there is no shortage of important issues in the current presidential campaign, the shadow of apathy and cynicism looms over them. Forecasts suggest that we could see close to 30% abstention in the first round of the elections. This would be the lowest participation rate since 2002.

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