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2022 FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Macron to face Le Pen in battle to be French president

Incumbent Emmanuel Macron and his far right challenger Marine Le Pen will face each other once again in the second round run off vote in the race for the Elysée, preliminary results showed on Sunday night.

Published: 10 April 2022 20:11 CEST
Updated: 11 April 2022 00:26 CEST

Macron to face Le Pen in battle to be French president

Election posters for Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen and, inset, Jean-Luc Melenchon. Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron was on course to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of France’s
elections Sunday by a larger than expected margin, with the rivals now set to battle for the presidency in a run-off later this month.

Projections showed Macron scoring 28.6-29.7 percent in the first round and Le Pen on 23.5-24.7, with the top two candidates going through to the second round run-off on April 24.

That means the second-round run off vote in two weeks time which will decide the country’s next president will be a repeat of 2017, according to initial results.

Speaking shortly after the results were announced Le Pen called on all those who hadn’t voted for Macron to back her in the second round vote.

She said April 24th’s second round run-off would be reflect the choice between the “society and civilisation” of France.

“I will put France in order within five years,” she told her supporters in Paris, urging “all those who did not vote for Emmanuel Macron” in the first round to back her in the second.

Her cheering supporters chanted “We are going to win”.

Despite entering the campaign late and holding just one rally before the vote, Macron appears to have performed more strongly than predicted by pre-vote opinion polls and won immediate support from defeated rivals for the second round.

“It’s a new campaign that is opening now,” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said after the publication of the projections, which led supporters of Macron to erupt in joy at the candidate’s headquarters in Paris.

Far left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon was third with just over 20 percent of the vote, whilst far right candidate Eric Zemmour was fourth with 7.1 percent.

Zemmour, who called each of his two million votes “a cry from a people that does not want to die”, urged his supporters to back Le Pen.

Centre right candidate Valerie Pecresse was fifth with just 5.1 percent followed by Socialist party candidate Anne Hidalgo who scored just 1.9 percent.

Ecologist candidate Yannick Jadot scored 4.4 percent initial results showed.

In a boost for Macron, he swiftly won the support of the defeated Socialist, Communist, Green and traditional right-wing candidates in the second round.

Melenchon urged his supporters to refrain from voting for Le Pen, but did nor issue a call to back Macron.

🔴🗳 #Presidentielle2022: Estimation Ipsos & @SopraSteria_fr des résultats du #1erTour ➡️ #EmmanuelMacron et #MarineLePen qualifiés au #2ndtour.
Suivez la soirée en direct sur https://t.co/58sTC4DpCI @Francetele, @radiofrance, @RFI, @France24_fr, @LCP, @publicsenat, @le_Parisien pic.twitter.com/LZioWQi3FS

— Ipsos France (@IpsosFrance) April 10, 2022

The initial scores are based on sample polling stations and are collated by various polling organisations – which means that different media have slightly different results.

The final scores are released by the Interior Ministry early on Monday morning, and while the final percentages are likely to shift slightly it will be very unlikely to affect the overall result.

A pivotal moment in the next stage of the campaign is likely to come on April 20 when the two candidates are set to take part in a TV debate broadcast live on national television.

The final debate has in the past had a crucial impact on the outcome of the vote such as in 2017 when Macron was seen as gaining the upper hand in exchanges with a flustered Le Pen.

The 44-year-old is expected for the next two weeks to put his diplomatic efforts on the Ukraine crisis to one side and focus more whole-heartedly on campaigning in a bid to find the election momentum that has so far eluded his team.

Although her opponents accuse her of being an extremist bent on dividing society, Le Pen has sought to project a more moderate image in this campaign and has focused on voters’ daily worries over rising prices.

But Macron is expected to target her past proximity with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, her plans to radically change the functioning of the European Union, as well as the cost of her economic programme that includes massive tax cuts.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.