Georgia Goble
Trigger warning: Brief mentions of Islamophobia, homophobia and antisemitism
The 2017 French presidential elections saw the centre-right banker-politician Emmanuel Macron win with a decisive margin against the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen. But after almost five rocky years of protests, unrest and the turmoil of a global pandemic, with all the political fallout that comes with it- can France’s youngest president really hold on to the role for another term?
The far-right candidates
Unlike the somewhat predictable recent elections in Britain, the looming French election is shaping up to provide some genuine suspense and excitement, with the President facing real threats from the far and centre-right.
Marine Le Pen, the current leader of Le Rassemblement National (RN) and daughter of the party’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, currently poses the biggest threat to Macron’s hopes of reelection, making a repeat of the 2017 head to head a likely prospect. According to recent polls, Marine Le Pen is the second favourite in the race, with 16.9% of those polled putting the controversial figure as their prefered candidate in the first round. In comparison, Macron’s most recent average is set at 24.1%.
However, Le Pen is not the only far-right figure in the race. Though he has made no formal announcements, Éric Zemmour, the journalist and TV political commentator, is gaining more popularity as the weeks go on. Often compared to Trump, Zemmour is renowned for anti-Islam, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist and homophobic sentiments. He has previously spoken about his theory that Islam and immigration will “destroy” France, and has offered warnings of a “race war.” Zemmour has additionally been accused of Holocaust denial, despite being Jewish. A recent poll found that 16.7% of people surveyed would vote for Zemmour, with the far-right newcomer steadily beginning to encroach on Le Pen’s long held monopoly on right-wing extremism.
Le Pen’s tenure as head of the RN has seen it undergo substantial changes. Previously a party defined by explicit antisemitism and racism under her father’s leadership, its current leader has attempted to “sanitise” its image to appeal to a more widespread audience. Le Pen even kicked her father out of the party in 2015, after he once again denied that the Holocaust took place.
Despite her best efforts, Le Pen’s grand PR plan may have left her party in a less powerful position overall, with her shift away from explicit bigotry and prejudice leaving a gap in the market for hatred, which Zemmour has accordingly filled. If Zemmour does indeed stand for election as an independent candidate, worries will begin to mount within RN that the far-right vote will be split, leaving both parties ultimately ineffectual.
Who else is in the running?
Though election discourse has so far been dominated by Macron, Le Pen, and the headline-grabbing Zemmour, several less extreme candidates from the right, as well as left-wing candidates will also be in the running.
Xavier Bertrand, previously a minister under Sarkozy, is currently garnering 13.7% of the vote. He will take part in Les Républicains’ (the French equivalent of the Conservatives) internal election in December, alongside Valérie Pécresse, and several others, to choose the party’s election candidate. Pécresse would be the first female presidential candidate of the party, and describes herself as “two-thirds Angela Merkel and one-third Margaret Thatcher”, referring to her strong, economy-focused approach.
Other notable candidates include Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise on the left (currently polling at 8.9%), Yannick Jadot for the Greens (8.1%), and the Socialist Party candidate, and the first female mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo (5.1%).
After the France-UK post-Brexit fishing row, Jean-Frédéric Poisson of the Christian Democratic Party would nominally seem fitting for the role, though his chances seem unlikely as it stands.
As we enter the six-month lead-up to the first-round of the twelfth Presidential election of France’s Fifth Republic, due to take place in April 2022, Macron remains in poll position, despite his many faux pas across the last five years. But much could still change as France prepares to elect its next Chef d’Etat.
ured image courtesy of Rafael Garcin on Unsplash. No changes or alterations have been made to this image. Image license can be found here.
