Who are the candidates?
The gap narrowed between the two candidates running for the first round on Sunday: outgoing President Emmanuel Macron, president of La République en Marche (center), and Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the far-right National Rally party.
According to opinion polls, Macron and Le Pen are on the way to victory over the other two candidates, which will allow them to cross swords in the second round – an opportunity to replay the duel in which the candidate of the Republic was knocked out. Winner in 2017.
If Emmanuel Macron was criticized for entering the campaign late, occupied in particular by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Marine Le Pen for her part doubled down on actions on the ground, directing her speech to the importance of force. topics of this election.
In addition to purchasing power, which – by far – tops the list of ballot box issues – health, security, pensions and immigration are among the campaign’s main themes, according to an Elabe poll released earlier this month.
Behind them, the Radical Left Party candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has continued to advance in voting intentions since the start of the campaign, downsizing far-right campaigner Eric Zemmour (Reconquête) and right-wing candidate Valérie Pecres (Not the Republic). So the surprise is still possible.
Although he benefited from increased support after officially entering the race, Eric Zemmour, known for his anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances, did not appear to have been able to give the necessary breath to his campaign to look forward to the second round. .
To pave the way in case of defeat, the Reconquest candidate recently announced in the French media that he will run in the legislative elections with the aim of being elected as a deputy, ruling out the possibility of him returning to his career as a political commentator.
Environmental candidate Yannick Gadot (Europe-Ecology Les Verts) has seen his electoral intentions falter since the start of the year, after environmental issues were pushed to the background in this presidential campaign.
Eric Zemmour (Recovery), Valerie Pecresse (Republicans) and Yannick Gadot (Ecology of Europe, Greens)
Photo: afp via getty Images / Bertrand Guay / Clement Mahoudeau / Thomas Samson
The other candidates
- Fabian Roussel – Communist Party (left)
- Jean LaSalle – Let’s Resist! (center-right)
- Anne Hidalgo – Socialist Party (left)
- Nicolas Dupont-Aignan – Stand in front of France (right)
- Philip Bhutto – The New Anti-Capitalist Party (far left)
- Natalie Arthoud – The Labor Struggle (far left)
How is the poll done?
On Sunday, the French will take part in the first of two rounds of individual voting.
Polling stations will open at 8 a.m. (local time) in France and close at 7 p.m. in most cities – no later than 8 p.m. for some exceptions. In Canada, this means that after 2:00 PM (Eastern time), preliminary results, based on exit polls, will begin to come in.
As soon as the ballot papers are collected, the Constitutional Council will announce the results of the first round. It is possible to be elected President of the Fifth Republic at this point if one obtains an absolute majority of votes (50% of votes + 1).
Otherwise, the two candidates who received the most votes will face each other in the last round, on April 24. At the end of this second and final round, the candidate with a simple majority of votes will win.
French Presidency: It’s the end of the first round campaign, there are 12 candidates. We talk about it with Michel C. Auger, political columnist at La Presse and RC, who is in Paris covering this election.
How can French people living abroad vote?
On January 1, 2022, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimated that the community that settled abroad amounted to more than 1.6 million citizens.
To vote outside the country, the French must be registered on the consular electoral roll. All registered persons have received a summons by e-mail or post in which the location of the polling station is indicated.
Note that in Canada, the first round voting will take place on April 9 and the second round on April 23.
In the first round of the last French elections, in 2017, just over 40% of French living abroad voted for Emmanuel Macron, whose victory was reserved for the second round. At this last stage, just under 580,000 (45.84%) of them participated in the poll, out of more than 1.2 million registered voters.
When does the president take office?
Under Article 7 of the French constitution, any new person must be elected as head of state at least 20 days before and at most 35 days before the end of the current president’s term. With the transfer of power between Emmanuel Macron and his predecessor François Hollande on May 14, 2017, the current president’s five-year term will end on May 13, 2022.
Therefore, on this date, at the latest, his successor, who will hold the reins of the country for five years, will be invested. After this term, he will have the opportunity to run for a second term in a row.
The French will be called again to the polls on the occasion of the legislative elections, on June 12 and 19, 2022. About 577 deputies, including 11 outside France, will be appointed at the end of this exercise.
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