As the official campaigns for the 2022 French presidential elections kick off this week, RFI English takes a look at the personalities and platforms of the contenders for the Elysée Palace and the key issues that are dominating the debates on the hustings.
In the race for the Elysée in 2022 there are 12 candidates; four women and eight men.
This is pretty much in keeping with the average number of candidates in French presidential elections over the last 50 years or so.
In the first of a two part special edition on the French Presidential Elections 2022, RFI presents six of the 12 candidates and a selection of some of the *key elements in their political manifestos, starting in alphabetical order.
Nathalie Arthaud:
Nathalie Arthaud is a left-wing long shot who is running for the third time for the French presidency for the Lutte Ouvrière party. Arthaud has been the party's spokesperson since 2009 who, at the age of 18, discovered a communism that was "unadulterated by Stalinism."
A graduate of economics, she teaches in a secondary school in Aubervilliers, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department to the north of Paris - a region that is counted among one of the most socially disadvantaged in France.
In 2010, Nathalie Arthaud was nominated by her Lutte Ouvrière party as their candidate for the 2012 presidential election. However she garnered only 0.56% of the votes finishing 9th in the first round of the election.
The main programmes that the 55-year-old candidate proposes are:
- Distribution of work among all, without lowering wages
- General increase in basic wages
- Salaries, benefits, pensions above €2,000 per month
- Wage and pension indexes to be increased in line with inflation
- Lifting of trade, banking and business secrets
- Introduction of freedom of movement and settlement for migrants
Tenacious, but remaining very much the outsider, Arthaud ran for the presidency again in 2017 but obtained only 0.64% of the vote, finishing 10th in the first round of the presidential polls.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan:
Right-wing nationalist candidate Dupont-Aignan presents himself to the electorate as a "social Gaullist" and this is his third time running for the French presidency.
After having respectively collected 1.79% of the votes cast in 2012 and 4.70% in 2017, he maintains convinced he will be the "surprise victor" of the 2022 presidential election.
As president of Débout La France party, he has also been mayor of the town of Yerres, south of Paris for two decades. His ideological affiliation is dyed-in-the-wool French nationalist, making him very critical of the European Union and its institutions.
In 2017, between the two rounds of voting, he aligned with Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National.
Some of the main points of the 61-year-old candidate's manifesto underpin his stance as an outsider who likes to stay on the fringes of the political system:
- Replacement of the European Union by a new treaty establishing a community of free nations and à la carte projects
- Exit from NATO's integrated military command.
- Recruitment of 40,000 soldiers
- War against Islamic terrorist movements by cooperating with like-minded states
- Zero inheritance tax on the main residence
- Zero tolerance for squatters on private property
- Renegotiation of free trade treaties
- Re-establishment of border control by ending the Schengen agreements
- Deportation of foreign offenders at the end of their sentence
- Opening of a penal colony in the Kerguelen Islands reserved for those convicted of terrorism
- Return to a seven-year term of office with the possibility of a mid-term referendum on citizens' initiatives
Despite the maverick style he portrays to the French electorate, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan is a senior civil servant, having graduated from Sciences-Po and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration and is a long-time civil administrator.
Anne Hidalgo:
The Spanish-born mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo is the second female candidate chosen by the Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party) to run for the presidency - 15 years after Ségolène Royal was nominated in 2007.
Hidalgo has an uphill struggle on her hands, polling on average around 2% among French voters, as she carries the weight of a disintegrated centre-left onto the campaign trail.
Five years after the departure of François Hollande from the Élysée and the crushing defeat of then socialist candidate Benoît Hamon, the party has collapsed.
Since the beginning of her campaign, Anne Hidalgo has struggled to attract the attention of the electorate in what is her first run for the presidency. Here are some of Hidalgo's key policies for 2022:
- Increase the minimum wage by 200 euros net
- Penalties for companies that do not respect gender pay equality
- The crime of ecocide against serious and intentional environmental damage recognised and punished
- Teachers' pay to be gradually brought up to the level of executives
- A "diversity plan" to put an end to ghetto schools
- Legal retirement age capped at the current 62 years with minimum old age pension to be increased to €1,000 net.
- Train up to 15,000 new doctors per year
- Construction of 150,000 social housing units per year
- Give more resources to the army
- Recruitment of police and gendarmes and improve the living and working conditions
- More than €1 billion allocated to the fight against violence against women.
- More alternatives to imprisonment
- Five-year plan to combat racism and anti-Semitism
- 50% reduction in CO² emissions from the industrial sector by 2035 compared to 2015
- Immigration: complete the reform of the Dublin system
- End the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in favour of a pact adapted to the economic situation of each State
Like the traditional Les Républicans (The Republicans) on the right, the Socialist Party electorate has been siphoned off by Emmanuel Macron's République en Marche giving Hidalgo's bid for the Elysée Palace little chance.
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Yannick Jadot:
Back in 2017, Jannick Jadot had been designated to represent Europe Ecologie-Les Verts after the presidential primaries but decided to withdraw his candidacy in favour of the socialist Benoît Hamon, depriving the Greens of a candidate for the first time since 1974.
Jadot has been an MEP since 2009, styling himself as a both a militant in the struggle for environmental protection - specifically in the fight against lobby groups - and as a pragmatist in finding solutions to environmental disputes.
In 2002, Jadot became the director of campaigns for the Greenpeace France and participated in the creation of the "Alliance for the Planet", taking part in the Grenelle de l'Environnement (a series of meetings between the State and associations on energy, transport and biodiversity), which led to government measures being implemented in 2007.
With his track record as an environmentalist campaigner, it is unsurprising that ecological issues take precedence in the 54-year-old candidate's agenda:
- €10 billion per year for the renovation of energy wastes
- 3,000 additional onshore wind turbines and 40 km² of additional solar panels before 2027, development of offshore wind power
- Closure of current nuclear reactors as they become obsolete, including a dozen by 2035
- Advocate for a federal Europe, focused on the fight against global warming
- Ban on airlines when the train journey is less than 4 hours
- Ban on single-use plastics by 2030
- No more hunting at weekends and during school holidays
- No more rooting out animals, no more hunting at hounds and no more bullfighting
- End of cage farming, limit the amount of fish caught to the level recommended by scientists, end of fishing techniques that destroy marine life
- Use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides halved by 2027
- Creation of a climatic wealth tax, which will tax assets over €2 million, depending on the impact of financial and real estate assets
- Legalization of cannabis, with production and sale to be supervised by the State
- Fundamental rights for migrants: guaranteed access to health and accommodation
- Regularisation of people settled in France who can prove that they have a job, a family life or children at school - right to work as soon as they apply for asylum
- Mandatory equal pay for women and men
- The right to abortion enshrined in the constitution
Although a first round victory for Yannick Jadot and his green agenda is extremely unlikely, a solid percentage in the polls could make him the kingmaker for either of the two finalists going into the second round of the presidential elections.
Jean Lassalle:
Proudly hailing from a family of shepherds, Jean Lassalle is a seasoned agent provocateur on France's political landscape since becoming one of the youngest mayors in the country at the age of 21 back in 1977. At 66, this is his second run for the presidency.
With a reputation for political stunts such as singing Béarnais songs at the National Assembly, going on hunger strike, and touring France on foot, Lassalle had long been associated with the centrist MoDem leader François Bayrou, but is now running for his own party's ticket - Résistons!
As an agricultural technician from the Pyrenees, Lassalle surprised many by running in 2017 when he garnered 1.2% of the vote.
Lassalle's political platform revolves around local trade and the defence of local producers:
- Define a Marshall Plan for the reindustrialisation of France
- Create free zones to encourage the installation of companies in municipalities below a certain population threshold
- Establish a Citizens' Initiative Referendum
- Recognise the spoiled votes
- Create a universal national service, military or civilian
- Review the length of presidential and legislative terms of office
- Give priority to small and medium-sized enterprises in calls for tender issued by local authorities
- Raise the minimum wage to €1400 net
- Reduce VAT on hydrocarbons from 20% to 5.5
- Exempt the first two employees from taxes
- Abolish the Court of Justice of the Republic
Although calling Lassalle an outsider would be an understatement, his contribution to French political debate for the agrarian sector and the rights of small farming communities has long been appreciated by the French public. His striking presence on the hustings often proves to be a welcome distraction from the protracted ambitions of the political establishment.
Marine Le Pen:
The heiress of the far-right National Front from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party was rebranded Rassemblement National (National Rally) in 2018 in a bid to shake off the more extremist rhetoric of the past.
This is Marine Le Pen's third shot at the French presidency.
In 2012, she came third with 17.9% of the vote but was eliminated in the first round. By 2017, however, she qualified for the 2nd round but failed to win against Emmanuel Macron.
Since then, her party has gone through complicated periods and its policy of "de-demonisation" of the Rassemblement National has left its mark.
Although the party has dropped its anti-EU stance, key policies such as striking hard against immigration and increasing security across France remain firmly in place:
- Propose a referendum on immigration and put an end to the family reunification of migrants
- Asylum applications only processed abroad
- Ensure national priority for access to social housing and employment
- Systematically expel illegal immigrants, delinquents and foreign criminals
- Make security everywhere and for everyone a priority of the five-year term
- Reintroduction of minimum prison sentences, eliminate sentence reduction and establish a real life sentence
- Establish a presumption of legitimate defence for the police
- Achieve 85,000 prison places by 2027
- Renationalise the motorways to reduce the price of tolls by 15% and privatise public broadcasting to abolish the licence fee
- Exempt all young workers up to the age of 30 from income tax so that they stay in France and start their families here
- Double support for single mothers raising children while strengthening controls to prevent fraud
- Abolish taxes on direct inheritance for modest and middle class families
- Ensure France's energy independence
- Implement a "slaughterhouse plan" to ensure dignified conditions and ban slaughter without stunning
- Launch a €20 billion emergency support plan for health
- Put the teaching of French, mathematics and history back at the heart of the curriculum
However, for Marine Le Pen, a woman who already saw herself in the Elysée Palace by 2022, the Rassemblement National must now deal with a more vitriolic opponent within the far right - the former journalist Eric Zemmour - while also wooing the centre-right to her side.
To be continued...
French Presidential Elections 2022 - The candidates and the policies - Part 2 will be published on Tuesday 29 March on RFI English, featuring the profiles and platforms of:
- Emmanuel Macron
- Jean-Luc Mélenchon
- Valérie Pécresse
- Philippe Poutou
- Fabien Roussel
- Eric Zemmour
*Key elements: Due to the varying length of the agendas being presented by the presidential candidates, the elements presented in this article refer to the general points of the contenders' manifestos.
