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France’s presidential election candidates begin the final push

A week before France's high-stakes presidential election, the four top candidates began a final push to woo undecided voters who will determine the outcome of the tight race between the hard left, centre, right and far right.

Published: 17 April 2017 09:13 CEST
France's presidential election candidates begin the final push
Election posters. Photo: AFP

On April 23rd, the French go to the polls in the most unpredictable vote in the country's post-war history to choose two candidates from a field of 11 who will go through to a run-off two weeks later.

With a duel between far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Communist-backed radical Jean-Luc Melenchon, both eurosceptics, among one of six possible outcomes the election is being closely watched in Brussels and around the world.

Opinion polls show one in three voters still undecided about who to back after a campaign characterised by scandals and upsets. In an interview in Le Parisien newspaper on Sunday, 65-year-old Melenchon, who is threatening to quit the euro and massively increase public spending, vowed he would be a safe pair of hands on the eurozone's second-largest economy.

“I am not from the far left,” the leader of the La France Insoumise (Unbowed France) movement said, insisting he was “ready to govern”.

Melenchon's surge has shaken up the race, with many hesitating between voting with their hearts and a tactical vote for whichever candidate they see as best placed to keep Le Pen or Melenchon out of power.

Le Pen, whom polls show leading the first round with centrist Emmanuel Macron on around 22-24 percent each, returned to her party's core themes of immigration and Islam Saturday to try to mobilise her base.

The opinion polls had shown her virtually assured of a place in the May 7th runoff but Melenchon and the conservative Francois Fillon have narrowed the gap with her and Macron to about three points, blowing the race wide open.

Identity angst

In a speech in the southern city of Perpignan the 48-year-old National Front (FN) leader lashed out at Macron and Fillon, accusing them of being soft on radical Islam.

“With Mr Macron, it would be Islamism on the move,” Le Pen said, in a play on the name of Macron's En Marche (On the Move) party, calling the 39-year-old champion of diversity “unscrupulous”.

Casting herself as the best defender against the jihadists who have killed over 230 people in France since 2015, Le Pen also tore into Fillon, accusing him of letting ultraconservative Islam gain ground when he was prime minister between 2007 and 2012.

The election has revealed high levels of angst over a perceived erosion of French identity, which Le Pen has pinned on immigration, particularly from Muslim North Africa.

In an Ifop-Fiducial poll for Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) newspaper 86 percent of FN voters said they “no longer feel at home” in France and 73 percent considered Islam incompatible with the French Republic.

But the poll also showed Le Pen, who has spent years trying to detoxify the FN's image, still struggling to win over the absolute majority of voters needed for victory in a run-off.

Three-quarters of non-FN voters said the party as “dangerous for democracy” and four out of five found it “racist”.

'Scapegoating Europe'

Fillon, who is on the rebound from a damaging expenses scandal that had caused some of his voters to switch to Le Pen or Macron, used Easter to mobilise his traditionalist Catholic base.

“Patriotism is not a dirty word,” he told supporters in the cathedral town of Puy-en-Velay on Saturday – borrowing from the songbook of Le Pen who styles the FN the “party of patriots”.

In an interview published Sunday, the 63-year-old former prime minister, who refused to bow out despite being charged with misusing public money over payments to his wife, said he was convinced the scandal was behind him.

“I know I will be in the second round,” he told the JDD.

If elected he would “unite everyone” and “wipe the slate clean,” said Fillon, who has accused the left, the judiciary and media of fomenting the expenses scandal to try to derail his presidential bid.

The presence among the top four of two anti-globalisation candidates who have threatened to take France out of the euro – Le Pen and Melenchon – has caused jitters among investors.

During a visit to the World War I battlefield of Chemin des Dames on Sunday, outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande warned against “scapegoating Europe” which had “protected us against war”.

By Clare Byrne

POLITICS

8 things you never knew about Andorra

The tiny statelet nestled in the Pyrenees mountains that mark the border between France and Spain hit the headlines with its new language requirement for residency permits – but what else is there to know about Andorra?

Published: 26 April 2024 15:11 CEST
8 things you never knew about Andorra

This week, Andorra passed a law setting a minimum Catalan language requirement for foreign residents. 

It’s not often the tiny, independent principality in the mountains makes the news – other than, perhaps, when its national football team loses (again) to a rather larger rival in international qualifying competitions.

The national side are due to play Spain in early June, as part of the larger nation’s warm-up for the Euro 2024 tournament in Germany. Here, then, in case you’re watching that match, at Estadio Nuevo Vivero, are a few facts about Andorra that you can astound your fellow football fans with…

Size matters

Small though it is – it has an area of just 468 square kilometres, a little more than half the size of the greater Paris area – there are five smaller states in Europe, 15 smaller countries in the world by area, and 10 smaller by population.

People

Its population in 2023 was 81,588. That’s fewer people than the city of Pau, in southwest France (which is itself the 65th largest town in France, by population).

High-living

The principality’s capital, Andorra la Vella (population c20,000 – about the same population as Dax) is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1,023 metres above sea level. 

Spoken words

The official language – and the one you’ll need for a residency permit – is Catalan. But visitors will find Spanish, Portuguese and French are also commonly spoken, and a fair few people will speak some English, too.

Sport

We’ve already mentioned the football. But Andorra’s main claim to sporting fame is as a renowned winter sports venue. With about 350km of ski runs, across 3,100 hectares of mountainous terrain, it boasts the largest ski area in the Pyrenees.

Economic model

Tourism, the mainstay of the economy, accounts for roughly 80 percent of Andorra’s GDP. More than 10 million tourists visit every year.

It also has no sales tax on most items – which is why you’ll often find a queue at the French border as locals pop into the principality to buy things like alcohol, cigarettes and (bizarrely) washing powder, which are significantly cheaper.

Head of state

Andorra has two heads of state, because history. It’s believed the principality was created by Charlemagne (c748 – 814CE), and was ruled by the count of Urgell up to 988CE, when it was handed over to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Urgell. The principality, as we know it today, was formed by a treaty between the bishop of Urgell and the count of Foix in 1278.

Today, the state is jointly ruled by two co-princes: the bishop of Urgell in Catalonia, Spain and … the president of France, who (despite the French aversion to monarchy and nobility) has the title Prince of Andorra, following the transfer of the count of Foix’s claims to the Crown of France and, subsequently, to the head of state of the French Republic. 

Military, of sorts

Andorra does have a small, mostly ceremonial army. But all able-bodied Andorran men aged between 21 and 60 are obliged to respond to emergency situations, including natural disasters.

Legally, a rifle should be kept and maintained in every Andorran household – though the same law also states that the police will supply a firearm if one is required.

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