France’s election seen from the US: Geopolitics, inflation loom large

Polls put French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right rival Marine Le Pen neck and neck for the April 24 runoff. The election has “exposed seismic shifts in France’s political culture”, writes one US observer. © Nicolas Tucat, AFP

Could France be facing its Trump moment? For US commentators, France’s presidential runoff between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen has raised the prospect of a fresh shakeup in transatlantic alliances, which could test Western unity against Putin’s Russia as war rages in Ukraine.

As of late Sunday evening, Washington, DC time, the outcome of France’s first round of presidential voting was all but certain: incumbent Emmanuel Macron will face the far-right's Marine Le Pen in a rematch of their 2017 run-off election. And this time around, the numbers suggest that Le Pen is well within reach of the Élysée Palace, with two of the latest polls putting her at 49 points to Macron’s 51 in the second round of voting on April 24.