The candidates for the French presidential election in April have been officially announced. Incumbent Macron has risen in polls. Right-wing populist Le Pen is just ahead of right-wing radical Zemmour.
Eight men and four women will face off in April’s French presidential election. The State Council announced the list of candidates who have collected the necessary 500 sponsorships from mayors, deputies or regional councils.
The only thing left open was whether the radical left-wing Philippe Poutou was one of the applicants. That is now the case, but according to polls he has no chance of moving into the runoff.
Macron before Le Pen
The war in Ukraine is also affecting the French election campaign. President Emmanuel Macron submitted his candidacy in writing and has so far refrained from making any major campaign appearances. In France he presents himself as a crisis manager, maintains regular telephone contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and benefits from this in the polls, where he rose to 30 percent.
The right-wing populist Marine Le Pen is still in second place with 15 percent. On Sunday evening, however, she had to watch her niece Marion Maréchal defect to the right-wing extremist Eric Zemmour.
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Presidential election in France 2022: The candidates
Zemmour just behind Le Pen
It is still unclear who will be in the very likely runoff. Zemmour is hot on Le Pen’s heels with 13 percent. He is the applicant who has attracted the most attention in recent months. The publicist is considered even more extreme than Le Pen and could take away many of her votes.
The left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon overtook the right-wing conservative candidate Valérie Pécresse in a poll. What Le Pen, Zemmour and Mélenchon have in common is that they have shown their closeness to Russian President Putin in the past.
In France, a new president will be elected on April 10, 2022. If there is no absolute majority of the votes in the first ballot, a second ballot is scheduled for April 24th.
With information from Sabine Rau, ARD Studio Paris