Researched by: Sara Varghese & Prafula Grace Busi 

Meet the contestants: Macron vs Le Pen

First, the electoral system: France has a convoluted way of picking its president. The candidates first qualify to participate in the race by securing the endorsements of 500 mayors or local councillors across the country. Then, the candidates face off against each other in the first round of voting. Theoretically, any candidate who secures more than 50% of the vote can be elected president right then—but it’s never happened in French history. Voters then go to the polls again—typically in two weeks—to choose among the top two finalists of the first round.

Point to note: There are very few nations that vote in two rounds—except in central Europe. The conventional wisdom is that it allows citizens to vote with their “heart” in the first round—and with their “head” in the second. And it allows for a broader range of candidate choices.

Emmanuel Macron: The 44-year old swept on to the national scene with a landslide victory in the 2017 election—and became the youngest president in French history. A self-avowed centrist, Macron is the graduate of the elite National School of Administration—which has produced three other French presidents—and a former investment banker. With that kind of pedigree, he is often viewed as wealthy and out-of-touch. 

His personal life: has long been the source of heated media coverage. There is a 24-year gap between him and his 69-year old wife, Brigitte—who was his drama teacher in school. Macron met her when he was 15 years old. Point to note: Brigitte is also the heir to a chocolatier company—and was married to a banker whom she left for Macron.

Marine Le Pen: The woman vying to be France’s first female president is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen—the founder of the far-right National Front party. Le Pen Sr was openly racist and once called the gas chambers of the Holocaust a “detail of history.” She joined her father’s party at the age of 18 and steadily rose through the ranks—until she took over his job as president in 2011. But she has since expelled Le Pen Sr from the party—and even changed its name. It was renamed Rassemblement National (National Rally) after Le Pen lost to Macron in 2017. In sum, Le Pen is credited with “mainstreaming” the French far-right—by taking a softer line than her father.

Interesting point to note: Le Pen initially trained as a lawyer—when she often represented illegal immigrants.

Her personal life: is not as colourful or tabloid-worthy. Le Pen has been married and divorced twice—and has three children. All her partners have been members of the National Front:

“Her personal and political life became intertwined. Her father was the FN [National Front], and she chose all her lovers from the party too. The FN became her life. It was the Le Pen FN against the world.”

Macron’s future: At the mercy of left voters?

In a first round field of 12 candidates, Macron came out at the top with 27.84% of the vote—which is higher than the 24% he secured in the first round in 2017. Le Pen was at #2 with 23.5%—and hence will face him in this second round. What is equally notable: the far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon came in at #3 with a very respectable 21.9%.

So what does this tell us?

The centrist who polarises: Macron swept into power in 2017 as a fresh-faced centrist who promised to end polarisation. But with him claiming middle ground, everyone who opposes him has moved to the extremes of the political spectrum. As one expert notes: 

“Having promised on his election in 2017 to ‘remove the reasons for voting for the extremes’, Macron finds himself confronting now a devastated political landscape where only the extremes [of both right and left] present an alternative to his centrist administration, with far-right candidates the weightiest grouping in this election.”

The big behemoths of French politics—the centre-left Socialist Party and the centre-right Les Republicains—have been rendered irrelevant.

The far-left wild card: To win in the final contest, Macron will have to peel off Mélenchon’s voters who may not be easy to woo:

“Mélenchon drew many young, first-time voters as well as long-time abstentionists from the poorer neighbourhoods. He drew people who wanted Le Pen out of the race and who hoped immigration and identity politics would not be an obsessive theme in the run-off.”

Notably, while Mélenchon told his supporters not to vote for Le Pen, he has not endorsed Macron. And a recent poll shows that only 33% of Mélenchon voters would back Macron—with 16% supporting Le Pen—but more than 50% refused to answer. There is every indication that they will just choose to stay home.

Point to note: Muslims make up roughly 9% of the population—and nearly 69% of them voted for Mélenchon—and will play a decisive role… if they vote.

The ‘rebel’ vote: After five years, Macron has lost the advantage of being a fresh face on the political scene. Many are disillusioned with his presidency: “Five years on, he is the incumbent and familiarity has bred contempt: many see him as the establishment personified.” 

And his image as the “bankers’ friend” or the “candidate of the rich” has hardened—especially on the left. The great danger is that Le Pen will attract ‘rebel’ votes for ‘anyone but Macron’:

“The majority of Mélenchon’s base—union workers, intellectuals, immigrants—don’t want to vote for Macron, which should worry him. They reject Macron and his policies. But how will they react when they see polls projecting a victory for Le Pen? That might change their views on the matter.”

Point to note: Back in 2017, Macron and Le Pen scored 24% and 21.3% of the first round vote—but Macron went on to a decisive victory—getting 66.1% of the vote, twice as much as Le Pen. But everyone agrees that he won’t have such an easy time this time around.

An election of bad choices

Most French voters are furious that their choices have come down to Macron or Le Pen—once again. And they hate it. One poll found 80% of French people felt the campaign was “poor quality”—and in another, 55% said they were “unhappy” and 37% downright “angry” at their electoral choices.

The ‘lesser evil’ choice: For the third time in the past five presidential elections, the French will have to cast their ballots not in favour of a candidate—but to keep the other out of power. As one expert puts it:

“This time there will be an ‘anyone but Macron’ vote just as there will be, again for some, an ‘anyone but Le Pen’ vote. The second round will depend on who’s loved more, but also who’s hated more.”

Macron has been content to capitalise on this, and paint Le Pen as an extremist who must be kept out of power. But that tactic is also fueling rage against him—among voters who feel they are being “arm twisted” to vote for him.

A mood of apathy: The first round saw the lowest turnout in 20 years—with over a quarter of the registered voters not showing up at the polls. So it may also depend on who can get people to actually get out and vote:

“Insisting on the dangers of electing Marine Le Pen will not be enough. Macron will have to both defend his record over the past five years and set out a clear vision of where he wishes to take France in the next five. So far he has not done this convincingly.”

Key point to note: The two candidates garnered fewer than half the votes cast by those aged 18 to 35 in the first round:

“There is clearly a disconnect between the aspirations of young voters and the political offer available in the second round. Many young people feel their voices are not being heard and that their main concerns have been ignored during the campaign.”

Young voters may not like Le Pen but they despise Macron’s rants against “woke” ideas and “Islamo-leftism” in academia. And they are most likely to just stay home on election day.

The latest polls: offer mixed messages. One survey gives Macron an eight-point lead—54% to Le Pen’s 46%. Another puts them almost neck-and-neck, with Macron only just ahead by 51%-49%. But it is painfully apparent that the president’s lead is shrinking. And a wave of absenteeism on the left may sink him on election day.

The bottomline: is best summed up by this political analyst who warns:

“If left-wing voters were to abstain in significantly larger numbers than the ‘populist block’ Marine Le Pen has courted and moulded over the years, then we could end up with a ‘political accident’: the election of a candidate whose political and ideological DNA is incompatible with a majority of the French.”

Editor’s note: There are serious implications of either a Macron or Le Pen victory for Europe, Ukraine, NATO, climate change and Muslims in France. We will decode those once the race is decided on April 24.

Reading list

France 24 has a good explainer on how French elections work. For profiles on Macron and Le Pen, check out Al Jazeera and the Evening Standard, respectively. Al Jazeera and Euronews have the best analysis of the election and the voters’ mood. Politico lists the five big takeaways from round one. BBC News lists the two candidates’ campaign positions—while Deutsche Welle looks specifically on their stance on the hijab.