With just six weeks to go before France's presidential election, the outbreak of war in Ukraine is shaking up an already bizarre campaign, with candidates forced to roll with the punches and adjust, or even justify, their schedules on the stump.
No presidential campaign in French history has ever seemed so captive to world events and yet so ancillary as the race approaches. The incumbent has yet to declare his bid for re-election, preoccupied as he is with the conflict now raging in Europe, leaving a slew of candidates shadowboxing without a headline adversary. And a French electorate beleaguered by the lingering Covid-19 pandemic has yet to fully take an interest in the awkward contest for the country's top job.
Preoccupied with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron has yet to throw his hat in the ring officially, although there is little doubt his name will be on the presidential ballot. France currently holds the rotating European Union presidency, just as the hottest conflict on the continent in decades is rattling the bloc to its core.
After an EU summit on Thursday, Macron's agenda on Friday included a NATO summit via video conference, receiving predecessors François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy at the Élysée Palace for their foreign policy advice, and providing an exceptional presidential address read simultaneously to both houses of the French parliament.
"I salute the courage that [Ukraine's people and authorities] have shown in resisting Russia's massive military offensive," Macron's missive read, going on to pledge that "nothing has been nor will be neglected to come to their aid; we owe them support and solidarity". The French leader added that the sanctions, to be levied at the highest echelons of Russian power, "are never without consequences, including for ourselves, but we stand by them because this is about defending our values". His message lasted 10 minutes as read to lawmakers, who remained standing as they listened.
Campaign out of kilter
The Paris Agricultural Fair, which opens Saturday and stands as a time-honoured stop for candidates in a presidential election year, had been mooted as the occasion for Macron to finally launch his campaign before the March 4 deadline. But observers deemed that unlikely on Friday as events in Ukraine unfolded.
And yet the clock is ticking, with just 44 days to go before French voters cast their ballots in the April 10 first round, which will narrow the field to two finalists who will compete in an April 24 run-off.
Macron is far and away the front runner in this odd race, scoring 24 or 25 percent in voter opinion polls for the first round, well ahead of far-right candidate and 2017 finalist Marine Le Pen at 17 or 18 percent. Far-right challenger Eric Zemmour and conservative Valérie Pécresse are next in line, according to polls, ahead of a peloton of leftist candidates led by far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”) candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Candidates have shuffled their schedules to meet the moment, even though many were already struggling to gain traction with voters as the spectre of record abstention looms over the April election.
The campaign "has effectively been shaken up by the war in Ukraine", Le Pen told BFMTV and Radio Monte-Carlo. Asked whether she believed the conflict would give the incumbent an advantage at the ballot box as Macron takes centre stage internationally, she said: "Objectively, I hope not" but noted that "he could be tempted to reduce" his time on the campaign trail.
Zemmour's campaign, meanwhile, said it had initially hesitated over whether to go ahead with the far-right pundit-turned-politician's rally on Friday evening in the Alpine city of Chambéry, before deciding to stay the course.
"It seems to me that we have to keep going to see the French public," Zemmour said Friday afternoon. "Obviously the event is serious. There is war in Europe. But there isn't war in France," he said, adding that "we must respect the French" and "democracy".
Meeting with hunters on the campaign trail in Normandy on Friday, Les Républicains candidate Pécresse acknowledged that the meeting "might seem a bit out of sync with regard to the news".
"The campaign must continue," the conservative said. "But the context worries us enormously and if the conflagration continues on our doorstep, obviously that justifies us reasoning responsibly and actively, with our eyes turned towards Ukraine."
On the left, Greens candidate Yannick Jadot cancelled his campaign trip to Clermont-Ferrand after Russia's invasion began. He also postponed his scheduled appearance at the Paris Agricultural Fair owing to an extraordinary session on the war in Ukraine in the European Parliament, where he is a lawmaker.
Jadot, Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidalgo and independent hopeful Christiane Taubira all attended a demonstration in support of Ukraine in central Paris on Thursday evening.
The Greens and Socialist candidates have appealed for weapons to go to Ukraine to aid the country's population in their defence.
Hidalgo, who is also mayor of Paris, had the French capital's City Hall lit up in blue and yellow in support of Ukraine on Thursday. For three evenings starting Friday, at Hidalgo's request, the Eiffel Tower will follow suit. The Socialist candidate met with members of France's Ukrainian community on Friday morning and announced she would be "transforming" her rally in Bordeaux on Saturday into a "rally in solidarity with the Ukrainians".
Campaigning in the French overseas territory of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean, far-left candidate Mélenchon justified the move by saying, "In a democracy, we don't stop because Russia has invaded Ukraine."
Purchasing power worries
Even before Russia launched its invasion, several presidential candidates, including Le Pen on the far right and Mélenchon on the far left, expressed concerns over the conflict's potential impact on French consumers' purchasing power, the electorate's number one concern, according to polls. The conflict poses economic perils that include higher energy prices.
>> Ukraine crisis highlights stark divisions among France's presidential candidates
In La Réunion, Mélenchon expressed fears that "the price of oil, of gas, of wheat will rise, all the prices will rise and we will be the principal victims".
Le Pen similarly warned that the potentially "terrifying" consequences for French pocketbooks shouldn't be taken lightly.
"I say be careful about the nature of the sanctions," Le Pen said. "If the sanctions' victim is us, that makes no sense."
In a televised address on Thursday, Macron himself warned the French public that Russia's "act of war" would have "profound, durable consequences on our lives and the geopolitics of our continent".
While "France is not the country most exposed with regard to Russia ... what we don't know is the degree to which Putin will respond to sanctions", particularly with regard to gas in Europe, one French cabinet minister told Agence France-Presse.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
