Continuing the international politics theme from last week, this Sunday is the first phase of the French presidential election. It’s only the first phase for two reasons. First, France uses a runoff system (the runoff will be in two weeks). Second, France has so many political parties that there is no chance of anybody getting a majority in the first round. For the presidential election, there will be twelve candidates on the ballots.
Unlike in Australia, where the competition is mainly between a center-left party and a center-right party with minimal differences on international issues, there is a wide range of views of the role of France in international politics and Vlad the Destroyer’s minions have certainly been trying to influence the chances of the candidates with disinformation campaigns.
While he is not certain to win the run-off in two weeks, most observers expect the incumbent President, Emmanuel Macron, to make the run-off. He has led every poll with about 25-30% support. In terms of international issues, Macron sits firmly in the camp that has dominated France for the past fifty years — for lack of a better name, strong France internationalism. The basic gist of French foreign policy is that France is an active participant in working with other major democracies to build an international consensus on issues, but France certainly looks out for its own interests in those negotiations and is willing to say no to its allies or go it alone when it has to.
The two main challengers, however, represent the extremes of the far left and the far right. Maine Le Pen is the candidate of the National Rally (formerly the National Front). The agenda of the National Rally can be easily summarized as French Trumpism and would replace the current foreign policy with a more isolationist, pro-Putin policy. The National Rally has never come that close to winning a French election but it has held a solid share of the total vote. As such, it has made (with either Le Pen or her father as the party’s candidate) two of the last four run-offs. Current polls indicate that this year, the National Rally is running closer than it ever has in the run-off. However, pre-general polls of the run-off has the same weakness as general election polls conducted during the primary as supporters of a candidate are reluctant to indicate that they would support a rival in the run-off. The polling for the first round gives Le Pen around 22% of the first round vote.
The other contender for the runoff is Jean Luc Melenchon of a party with a name that roughly translates as France Unbowed. While the name of Melenchon’s party has changed over the years, it is the successor of the old French Communist Party and other far left parties. In the last two elections, Melenchon finished fourth in the first round. This year, polling has Melenchon in third with around 18%. With this many candidates and the margin of error, it would only be a minor upset for Melenchon to move ahead of Le Pen for second. While the foreign policy platform of Melenchon is not pro-Putin, it is certainly a very dovish form of internationalism with more emphasis on the U.N. and less on NATO and the European Union. Given the difficulty of the U.N. taking action on anything, a Melenchon presidency would be less likely to participate in NATO-centered efforts like the current one in Ukraine. In short, while Melenchon would not be Putin’s first choice candidate, he is a good second choice for any country that wants to be able to menace its neighbors without France doing anything other than expressing its disapproval.
We should know by the end of the day tomorrow who will make the second round unless it is very, very close for second-place. But for the next two weeks, the Biden Administration will be keeping one eye on France as it plans how to respond to the unsettling news out of the Ukraine.
