PARIS — French voters headed to polling stations nationwide Sunday for the first round of the country’s presidential election, one that seemed for months like a shoo-in for French President Emmanuel Macron but is now a tossup amid a strong challenge from the far right’s Marine Le Pen.
Macron, a centrist, is asking France’s 48 million voters for a second five-year term — but there are 11 other candidates and widespread voter apathy standing in his way. French citizens also feel that Macron is not helping them deal with rising fuel, food and heating costs. They blame him for neglecting domestic issues while he focuses on Ukraine.
With war raging on the European Union’s eastern border, this French presidential election has significant international implications, including the potential to reshape France’s post-war identity and indicate whether European populism is on the ascendant or in the decline.
France is the 27-member bloc’s second-largest economy after Germany, the only one with a U.N. Security Council veto, and its sole nuclear power. And as Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps up his military’s assault on Ukraine, French power will help shape Europe’s response. Macron, the leading presidential candidate, is the only one who supports NATO’s military alliance.
The top two vote-getters in Sunday’s election advance to a decisive runoff April 24 — unless one candidate gets more than half of the nationwide vote Sunday, which has never happened in France.
France operates a manual system in which voters are obliged to cast paper ballots in person.People who can’t do that can make arrangements ahead of time to authorize someone else to vote for them.
The April chill had forced voters to line up for Sunday’s polling stations in Paris, regardless of the fact that they were already bundled up. They placed paper ballots in envelopes, then put them into transparent boxes. Many were wearing masks, or applying hand gel, as part COVID-19. A small boy in Saint-Denis, Paris, patiently waited for his father’s secret ballot to be completed by hand.
The polls will close on Sunday at 7 PM (1700 GMT) for most locations, and one hour later in larger cities. By noon, just over a quarter of France’s electorate had cast ballots, slightly down from previous elections. Pundits before the vote suggested a low turnout could hurt Macron’s chances, but it could also hurt Le Pen too.
Many of the presidential hopefuls visited their local polling places early. Valerie Pecresse from the conservative Republican Party cast her ballot in Velizy–Villacoublay southwest of Paris. Le Pen showed up at Henin-Beaumont which is in the northern French region in trouble, and Macron with his wife went to Le Touquet. Le Touquet is a beach resort on England’s Channel.
Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon — one of half a dozen candidates on the left — has seen a late rise in the polls. Eric Zemmour (extreme-right pundit) and Anne Hidalgo, Paris Mayor of the Socialists are just two other candidates who want to get into the presidential Elysee Palace.
Macron for months looked like a shoo-in to become France’s first president in 20 years to win a second term. But that scenario evaporated in the campaign’s closing stages as the pain of inflation and rising gas, food and energy prices became the dominant election theme for many low-income households. They could drive many voters Sunday into the arms of Le Pen, Macron’s political nemesis.
In 2017, Macron trounced Le Pen by a landslide to become France’s youngest modern president. The win for the former banker — now 44 — was seen as a victory against populist, nationalist politics, coming in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the White House and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, both in 2016.
With populist Viktor Orban winning a fourth consecutive term as Hungary’s prime minister just days ago, eyes have now turned to France’s resurgent far-right candidates — especially National Rally leader Le Pen, who wants to ban Muslim headscarves in French streets and halal and kosher butchers, and drastically reduce immigration from outside Europe.
If Macron wins, however, it will be seen as a victory for the EU, which has shown rare unity of late in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Observers say a Macron reelection would spell real likelihood for increased cooperation and investment in European security and defense — especially with a new pro-EU German government.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has afforded Macron the chance to demonstrate his influence on the international stage and burnish his pro-NATO credentials in election debates. While he fully backs NATO, other candidates hold differing views on France’s role within the alliance. Melenchon says NATO produces only squabbles & instability.
This would be a devastating blow to the alliance that was formed to defend its members when the Cold War broke out 73 years earlier.
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John Leicester, Poissy France and Patrick Hermansen Paris both contributed.
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