The 2022 French presidential election looks to be a repeat of the 2017 contest, with incumbent Emmanuel Macron again facing off against challenger Marine Le Pen in a run-off scheduled for April 24. As of this writing, Macron led the field of 12 candidates with approximately 27.8 percent of the vote, with Le Pen following with 23.1 percent.
Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the La France Insoumise party finished third with approximately 22 percent of the vote. Former broadcaster Eric Zemmour, considered a “far-right” extremist by most mainstream news sources, finished a distant fourth at seven percent.
In France, if no candidate reaches 50 percent of the vote, the election then becomes a run-off of the top two candidates. A second round of elections could occur in May if neither Macron or Le Pen break the 50-percent barrier.
As an aside, some locations in America could learn something from French elections, as voting is always done in person with paper ballots, which are hand-counted.
Le Pen’s National Rally party is seen as a more conservative alternative to Macron’s La République En Marche! party and Macron’s globalist tendencies.
“I will restore France to order in five years,” Le Pen told supporters. Considered a Trump-like populist by many, Le Pen offered the French people “a choice of civilization” where “legitimate preponderance of French language and culture” would be the order of the day, with national “sovereignty reestablished in all domains.”
To many this sounds like a French version of Make America Great Again.
Macron, on the other hand, repeated globalist talking points when speaking to supporters.
“I want a France in a strong Europe that maintains its alliances with the big democracies in order to defend itself, not a France that, outside Europe, would have as its only common international allies the populist and xenophobic. That is not us,” Macron said.
Macron has spent much of the election season making himself look important to the peace of the world by imposing himself into the Ukraine War. The French president has attempted to personally intervene with Vladimir Putin on several occasions but those efforts, thus far at least, have come to naught.
Macron remains a slight favorite to win another term, but Le Pen certainly has ample ammunition to attack the current president’s record.
In late 2018, Macron’s commitment to climate-change action and new fuel taxes brought about the Yellow Vest movement. The movement crossed political ideology and became a conduit for ordinary French people to complain about pocketbook issues that the government wasn’t addressing.
Currently, France’s economy is in the throes of 7.4-percent inflation, the highest in decades. Polls show that the abrupt drop in purchasing power is the top issue for French citizens. Macron has answered those fears, claiming that his first act in a new administration will be to assist French households.
“I speak to people who feel daily insecurity, to those who feel it is difficult to live with dignity despite working hard,” Macron said on Sunday. “I want to convince you in the coming days that our project is more solid than that of the extreme right.”
Macron’s strategy against Le Pen seems to involve calling her “far right” and a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
Le Pen believes that the contest between her and Macron will be “a fundamental choice between two opposing visions of life.” She speaks against the “division, injustice and disorder” of Macron’s presidency.
Among the policies Le Pen will push for is a referendum on immigration, which would include strict controls on new immigration; a new “national priority” system that will prioritize French citizens ahead of foreigners; higher pension payments; and tax cuts on petrol and electricity prices. Le Pen also promises 25,000 new prison beds and more police.
“Our program is a social one because it completely takes into account the questions of daily life, above all the cost of living,” Le Pen said in her last rally before the first round of voting.
Macron, on the other hand, seems to be promising more of the same globalism and political centrism that marked his first term.
He claims that his proposals are “neither left, nor right.” For the Right, Macron promises more police officers, tax cuts for companies, and a rise in the retirement age from 62-65 in order to stabilize the pension system’s enormous debt. For the Left, Macron promises new recruits for the health service and a promise to make gender equality a priority in his next term.
Le Pen has a vision of a more “French” France. Macron seems to want to straddle the fence on the issues and continue on the same globalist path he’s been on for the last five years.
