France held the first round of its 2022 Presidential Elections yesterday, in which 12 candidates were whittled down to two frontrunners: centrist and incumbent Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
With the left failing to coalesce around a single convincing candidate, Macron and Le Pen will go head to head in the second round of voting on Sunday 24 April.
With 97% of votes counted, Macron is leading with 27.6%, and Marine Le Pen is behind with 23.4%. The final results may slightly change as the final votes are counted. Voter turnout was at around 74%, down 4% from 2017.
It is the third time in twenty years the far-right has reached the final round, and it is now the second presidential election in a row with Marine Le Pen. The run-off is a repeat of 2017, and Macron's margin over Le Pen is slightly larger this year than it was in 2017.
In reality, there was never any question of Macron going through to the second round; the question was whether veteran leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon could oust Le Pen to take second place. In the end, Mélenchon improved his 2017 result but narrowly missed out with 22% to Le Pen's 23.4%.
Yesterday's voting mimics the 2017 election, although Le Pen has also improved her result from the previous election and is also reflected in polls. She told supporters on Sunday that France is a broken country and it was time for a change from the "division, injustice and disorder" of Macron, presenting herself as the candidate to unite the country behind an agenda of "social justice and protection, fraternity, the notion of the nation."
The more divisive rhetoric that Le Pen would pursue with anti-immigration policies or tearing up environmental commitments had been toned down in the run-up to elections as she hoped to appeal to voters displeased with Macron's premiership.
Last night's results also marks the collapse of the two traditional centre-left and centre-right parties. The Socialist Party's (PS) collapse is monumental, getting only 1.7% - down 50% from 2012 when Francois Hollande won the presidency. Valérie Pécresse, of right-wing The Republicans (LR), also underperformed gaining only 4.8% of the vote, a marked decrease from 2017.
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In a late admission that they wouldn't make it through to the second round, defeated candidates Yannick Jadot, Anne Hidalgo and Valérie Pécresse urged their supporters to vote for Macron against the far-right. The President tried to appease critics of his programme by acknowledging that "there might not be support for our particular project and I respect that."
In turn, after weeks of scorning his far-right rival, Eric Zemmour encouraged his voters to back Le Pen in the second round. It is unclear whether Mélenchon will tell his supporters get behind Macron.
Both candidates are expected to ramp up campaigning efforts for the next two weeks.
