After the first round of the 2017 presidential election in France, economist Thomas Piketty suggested that while there were four candidates on very close scores at the head of the field (Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen, François Fillon and Jean-Luc Mélenchon), in reality France was divided into three political camps: a socialist and more-or-less eurosceptic left, a pro-European and liberal centre and right, and a nationalist far right. The results of the first round for this year’s presidential election suggest he was right.
Despite a poor campaign, centrist president Macron has emerged in first place, with 27.8% of the vote – three points up on 2017 and better than final opinion polls predicted.
Macron hoped that a late entry into the official campaign, leaving six weeks of playing the president-candidate, would allow him to use his management of the pandemic as a platform and focus on the electorate’s key concerns – the cost of living and pensions reform. The Ukrainian war got in the way, with Macron focusing too much on being president and not enough on being the candidate. A brief burst of rallying round the flag saw him surge past 30% before dropping back to a predicted score around 26%. Every vote above that on Sunday will have been seen as a bonus.
