A lacklustre French presidential election campaign overshadowed first by the Covid pandemic and then by the war in Ukraine has exploded into life, propelling Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen into what looks like being a brutal runoff.
Here are five key takeaways from the first round of voting as France and wider Europe brace for a nervous two weeks before the deciding 24 April vote that will determine who occupies the Élysée Palace for the next five years.
It’s not over yet
In the end it was a more comfortable victory for the incumbent than many pollsters and commentators had predicted: Macron finished on 27.8% of the vote, while Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) managed 23.1%.
Both scored higher than in the previous first round in 2017, but the gap between them was also wider, giving Macron a much-needed boost going into the second round after weeks when the momentum was all Le Pen’s. Although early second-round polls show the president marginally ahead, the final result is far from certain.
Le Pen will gain votes from the far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, and Macron from the more mainstream right and left and the Greens. But he will also need the backing of some who voted for the radical-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, many of whom would rather abstain or – although the La France Insoumise (Unbowed France) leader urged them not to – vote for Le Pen.
Mélenchon almost did it
The former Socialist minister came in at a very close third with a significantly higher than expected 22% and at one stage, late in the evening as the big-city votes were being counted, looked as if he might pip Le Pen to the second round.
Cementing his status as the only powerful voice on a weak and divided left, his passionate oratory and radical programme were a big hit with the young: he was far and away the most popular candidate among 18- to 34-year-old voters – who unfortunately for him were also the least likely age group to vote.
He also benefited from a last-minute surge from left-leaning voters initially tempted by parties such as the Greens and the Communists but who concluded, too late in the day, that despite some of his more extreme policies Mélenchon was the only leftwing candidate with a chance of making it to the second round.
A new political landscape
The radical realignment of French politics that began in 2017 when Macron swept to power at the head of his “neither left nor right” startup reached its logical conclusion with the near-total electoral destruction of France’s two traditional parties of government, the rightwing Les Républicains and the Socialist party.
On the right, Valérie Pécresse scored just 4.7%; the deep divide between moderates and hardliners in her party, still a force at local level, could now see it implode. On the left, the Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, managed just 1.7%, also a historic low for a Socialist party that only a decade ago controlled the Élysée, parliament and most of France’s regions.
In the place of the classic left-right divide has emerged a new political landscape made up of a mainstream bloc in the centre that is liberal, pro-European and globalist, and by two extremes on the right and left that are, to varying degrees and in different ways, populist, protectionist, and nationalist and/or identitarian.
France divided
Roughly 53% of registered French voters who cast their ballots on Sunday voted for an anti-establishment candidate, on the right or the left. Perceived by many as “the president of the rich”, Macron’s challenge in the second round will be to persuade enough of them that though they may dislike him, they loathe Le Pen more.
The far-right leader’s relentless focus on the cost of living crisis was smart and spoke to many voters’ core concerns. Macron will seek to point out the incoherences in her programme, defend his economic record and paint a forward-looking picture; she will portray him as out of touch and a representative of the elite.
Perhaps the most striking of the multiple divides between the two rivals’ voters was this one, pinpointed by pollsters Ipsos: 43% of voters who said they were “very satisfied” with their life voted for Macron, compared to 21% for Le Pen, while 46% of those who said they were “not at all satisfied” voted Le Pen and just 4% Macron.
Putin did not damage Le Pen
Zemmour’s pro-Kremlin rhetoric came back to bite him, but for all Le Pen’s past cosying up to the Russian president – including Kremlin photo ops, support for his annexation of Crimea and campaign loans from Moscow banks – she was quick to condemn the Ukraine invasion and paid no electoral price for her previous positions.
Macron initially benefited from a rally-round-the-flag polling boost at the outbreak of the war, and his shuttle and telephone diplomacy with Moscow since has played well with his electoral base, for whom, polls suggest, foreign affairs tend to matter more than for voters likely to cast their ballot for Le Pen.
The second-round campaign will produce a sharper focus on the far-right leader’s past Kremlin sympathies, which some voters may be inclined to view as a potentially significant factor in a vote that Le Pen herself described as “a fundamental choice between two opposing visions of society and civilisation”.
Dates for the diary
Largely absent from the race until now, Macron will be far more active during the second round, with campaign visits planned to northern and eastern France on Monday and Tuesday before a big rally in Marseille on Saturday. The highlight of Le Pen’s first week will be a rally in Avignon on Thursday.
Both candidates are booked on several evening TV news shows before the key event of the campaign, the traditional head-to-head candidates’ debate at 9pm on 20 April. Le Pen’s disastrous performance in the 2017 debate is widely seen as having ensured her defeat; she will not want to make the same mistake again.
At midnight on Friday 22 April the mandatory period of “electoral silence” begins during which the media will be barred from quoting candidates or publishing opinion polls, with voting stations due to open at 8am on Sunday 24 April. Early estimates of the result will come as polls close at 8pm local time.
