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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.

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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ECONOMY

S&P downgrades French credit rating in blow to Macron

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded France's credit score on Friday citing a deterioration in the country's budgetary position, a blow to Emmanuel Macron's government days before EU parliamentary elections.

Published: 1 June 2024 15:44 CEST
S&P downgrades French credit rating in blow to Macron

In a statement, the American credit assessor justified its decision to drop France’s long-term sovereign debt rating from “AA” to “AA-” on concerns over lower-than-expected growth.

It warned that “political fragmentation” would make it difficult for the government to implement planned reforms to balance public finances and forecast the budget deficit would remain above the targeted three percent of GDP in 2027.

The S&P’s first downgrade of France since 2013 puts the EU’s second-largest economy on par with the Czech Republic and Estonia but above Spain and Italy.

The announcement will sting for Macron, who has staked a reputation as an economic reformer capable of restoring France’s accounts after low growth and high spending.

The risk of a ratings downgrade had been looming for several quarters, with the previous “AA” assessment given a “negative outlook”.

The surprise slippage in the public deficit for 2023 to 5.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) instead of the expected 4.9 percent did not play in the government’s favour.

France’s general government debt will increase to about 112 percent of GDP by 2027, up from around 109 percent in 2023, “contrary to our previous expectations”, the agency added.

Responding to the downgrade decision, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire reaffirmed the government’s commitment to slashing the public deficit to below three percent by 2027.

“Our strategy remains the same: reindustrialise, achieve full employment and keep to our trajectory to get back under the three percent deficit in 2027,” he said in an interview with newspaper Le Parisien, insisting that nothing would change in the daily lives of the French.

Le Maire claimed the downgrade was primarily driven by the government’s abundant spending during the Covid pandemic to provide a lifeline to businesses and French households.

The main reason for the downgrade was because “we saved the French economy,” he said.

Government critics offered a different rationale.

“This is where the pitiful management of public finances by the Macron/Le Maire duo gets us!” Eric Ciotti, head of the right-wing Republicans party, wrote on social media platform X.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called the Macron administration’s handling of public finances “catastrophic” and denounced the government as being “as incompetent as they are arrogant”.

A credit downgrade risks putting off investors and making it more difficult to pay off debt.

Earlier this year, influential ratings agencies Moody’s and Fitch spared handing France a lower note.

S&P also maintained its “stable” outlook for France on Friday on “expectations that real economic growth will accelerate and support the government’s budgetary consolidation”, albeit not enough to bring down its high debt-to-GDP ratio.

“S&P’s downgrading of France’s debt simply reflects an imperative that we are already aware of: the need to continue restoring our public finances,” Public Accounts Minister Thomas Cazenave wrote in a statement sent to AFP.

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