Who will win French election 2022?

Nicolas Sarkozy snubs centre-right hopeful in favour of Emmanuel Macron

France will vote for its new president in April in an election marked by division over the ongoing response to Covid-19, balancing the nation’s economy, tackling unemployment and questions over national identity.

In a crowded field of candidates, President Emmanuel Macron – who is yet to officially announce his candidacy – will once again attempt to stave off the French far-right, with a rising conservative candidate also threatening to split the mainstream vote.

Here is everything you need to know about the latest in the election campaign, the candidates and their chances of winning. 

1

The latest

Valerie Pecresse, the outsider centre-right hopeful in the French presidential race, has suffered a setback after Nicolas Sarkozy declined to attend her forthcoming rally in Paris.

Pecresse’s campaign “has been widely criticised as uninspiring since her designation” as the Republicans’ contender, The Times said. But she hoped Sarkozy “would be present in the front row of a rally being touted by her supporters as a chance for a new start”.

The former president has “let it be known that he will be otherwise engaged on Sunday”, the paper reported, “heightening concern in the Pecresse camp over his reluctance to back her publicly”.

Macron has been handed a further boost through the endorsement of Eric Woerth, a labour and budget minister in governments led by Sarkozy. The announcement had “raised questions about the possible stance of Sarkozy in the election”, France 24 said.

Making his support for Macron public, Woerth said that he did not “subscribe” to the arguments being put forward by Pecresse and her party, describing the serving president as the best option to “defend the interests of France and the French” in April’s election. 

His refusal to attend Pecresse’s forthcoming rally have added fuel to the fire of French media reports that are already “awash with reports that Sarkozy is critical” of her campaign”, The Times said.

She has come under fire for an “absence of eye-catching pledges”. But Sarkozy is reportedly “angry she has failed to mention him as her inspiration”, preferring instead to “pay tribute to the late centre-right president Jacques Chirac, whom Sarkozy disliked”.

2

The candidates

While he is yet to officially declare his candidacy, Emmanuel Macron is widely considered the favourite to win re-election come April. The serving president is expected to tout “new foreign investment projects in France and a booming economy as proof his economic reforms have been bearing fruit” after four years in the role, Reuters said.

Macron, who leads La République En Marche (Republic Forward), has also set himself up for a conflict with those who refuse to be vaccinated, “ramping up his rhetoric against France’s minority of non-vaccinated people – less than 10% of the population – in part as a way of setting the political battle lines for the election”, The Guardian reported.

Valerie Pecresse, the candidate for the centre-right Républicains, declared her candidacy in July 2021 following the party’s internal primary. Nicknamed “the bulldozer”, she has stated that she will be France’s first female president, describing herself as “one-third Thatcher and two-thirds Merkel”, France 24 said.

Running for a third time, Marine Le Pen is once again the candidate for her far-right Rassemblement national (National Rally) party. The daughter of the party’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is opposed to globalisation, which she has previously blamed for negative economic trends, as well as standing against any expansion in the EU’s power.

She has previously called for a referendum on leaving the bloc, but since 2019 has said she no longer advocates France leaving the EU or the euro currency. Her party also calls for the “de-Islamisation” of French society, while Le Pen has argued in favour of the establishment of a privileged partnership with Russia.

Unlike previous campaigns, she has “bet on dropping the populist messaging that once characterised her”, The New York Times (NYT) said, pushing efforts to “un-demonize” her party and its association “with flashes of antisemitism and xenophobia”.

Le Pen’s decision to detoxify her image is in part a result of the rise of far-right candidate Eric Zemmour. Dubbed “the French Donald Trump” by Politico, the controversial former television pundit is racking up “far more prime-time TV slots and front-page stories than many of his rivals”.

Zemmour “admires the former US president”, according to The Guardian’s Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis, and has been “convicted for inciting racial hatred”. But those criminal convictions have not stopped his “meteoric” rise to fame as first a journalist and now the “new face” of the French far-right. 

From the left of the French political spectrum, Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the socialist Groupe La France insoumise, is also running for the top job. Like Le Pen, he is also on his third crack at winning the presidency. 

A socialist, he stands for increased labour rights and the expansion of French welfare programmes. He also argues in favour of mass redistribution of wealth to rectify socioeconomic inequality and is an outspoken critic of the EU, which he claims has been corrupted and is now a tool for neoliberal ideology.

Christiane Taubira, the leftist unity candidate elected during the unofficial “people’s primary”, previously served as justice minister under president Francois Hollande. She also sat in the National Assembly of France for French Guiana from 1993 to 2012 and was a member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 1999.

Following her victory in the vote to select a candidate to lead the French left’s presidential campaign, she told activists: “We want a united left, we want a strong left and we have a great road in front of us.”

But the primary was “dogged by serious drawbacks”, France 24 said, including “the upfront refusal” by a number of leftist candidates “to pay any attention to its result”.

3

How the election works

The public will go to the polls and place their first votes on 10 April. 

If no candidate wins 50% of the vote, which the polls suggest is very unlikely, the election continues into a second-round run-off. In the second round, the top two candidates from the first round compete and the candidate with a majority wins. 

4

Who is leading in the polls?

According to Politico’s “Poll of Polls”, Macron leads the pack of candidates and would mop up 24% of first-round voters. He is ahead of Le Pen (17%), Pecresse (16%), Zemmour (13%) and Mélenchon (10%). Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, who announced an outsider pitch for the presidency in September 2021, trails the leading pack on just 3%. 

The news site’s tracker suggests that Macron has increased his share of the first-round vote by one percentage point since he won in 2017 and that he would win a second-round run-off vote with 57% of the vote. Le Pen is forecast to pick up 43% of the vote in the second round, with Pecresse touted to run a closer race with 47% of the vote. 

This is reflected in the bookies’ odds*, which give Macron a 1/3 chance of retaining the presidency. Pecresse has shortest odds of 4/1, compared with 10/1 for Le Pen. Zemmour is on 12/1, while Melenchon trails on 20/1.

@theweek