The first round of the French Presidential Elections will be held on April 10, 2022, and if the elections go to the second round, its date is set on April 24, 2022.

 So far 30 candidates have been nominated, among whom 13 are more prominent. These 13 candidates and their estimated percentages of the votes according to the latest poll taken in the first week of January, 2022 are as follows:

 Emmanuel Macron, 24%,

Ms.Marion Le Pen, President of the (Far-right) National Rally, 17%,

Valérie Pécresse1, 16%,

Éric Zemmour2, Independent Candidate, 16%,

Jean-Luc Melanchon3, LFI, 10%,

Yannick Jadot4, Greens, 6%,

Anne Hidalgo, ParisMayor, 4%,

Fabian Roussel6, Secretary of Communist Party,

Natalie Arthaud7, from  Lutte Ouvrière Party,

Nicolas Dupont-Aignan8, DLF,

Florian Philippot9 , President of Les Patriotes ,

Antoine Martinez10, President of Volontaire Pour La France, and

Francois Asselineau,  Former president of UPR

Considering the votes estimated, Macron’s best chance in the next round of French presidential elections is lack of a strong rival. So far the toughest rival of the French presidential elections has been the candidate of the national Rally. In the previous elections, Mr. Jean Louis Marie Le Pen, founded the party and it’s been for years that his daughter, Ms.Marion Le Pen, has been active in the Far-Right Campaign.

In 2017 when the protests of the Yellow Vest movement began following the several cents gas price rise, Ms.Marion Le Pen tried to give these economic protests in France a political face, but with the corona outbreak and declaration of continuous house quarantine, the conditions turned in the Macron’s favor and the weekly Yellow Vest protests ended.

On the other side, the corona crisis outbreak and the resulting economic consequences for the big and small French companies and shutdown of the bars, restaurants, and tourist sites and fall of France tourist revenues, have fanned this country’s social-economic crises so that after the first house lockdown, Emmanuel Macron had to change his cabinet’s prime minister.

To criticize the 5 year term of Macron’s presidency, we can point to the positive and negative aspects of it. His biggest strength point was improving the mechanism of payment of the debts and the related issues. And the second was his success in general vaccination of the country against corona.

 Negatively criticizing, his negative points were failure in the negotiations with Trump, despite the apparent friendly relation between the pair, lack of close relations between Macron and Joe Biden, failure of French negotiations with Putin whether about Ukraine or on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in 2019, and in other matters, failure of the French president’s efforts to negotiate with the Iranian side in Biarritz ( on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit in 2019), futility of his efforts in his trip to Lebanon for preventing the Lebanese economy from collapse, failing to achieve points of strength in the Libyan and Syrian crises and escalation of tensions with Turkey about the Libyan and Iraqi-Kurds crises. 

Now the question that comes to mind is that how much during his five year term has  Mr.Macron  been able to keep France in a stronger position? The answer to this question has been positive in some cases although he has caused France’s military expenses rise in the Ivory Coast region. What is important to the French analysts is that in recent years France has stepped out of its strategic isolation compared to the past years and has managed to participate in the international fight against terrorism.

Cases that France must focus on are related to increasing the economic power and dynamism of the country compared to the emerging powers. At present, France is technologically paralyzed and its leaders have been paying less attention to tools of soft power and distanced from the balance of power which Marshal de Gaulle had defined. At present, France is stuck between a mixture of emerging populism, on one side, and the US reluctance to cooperate with Europe and pressuring the “European Sovereignty”.

Therefore, with the landscape painted of the current status, the next round of French presidency over the European Union from the beginning of 2022, which happens in 13 years, is the best opportunity for realizing France goals in the waning months of Macron’s presidency. An opportunity that can pave the way for achieving the goal set by him in 2017. Because with his economic management records in the previous terms, he failed to address the entire scenarios defined by him in containing corona pandemic. Also, the termination of the 16 year old chancellorship of Merkel as the most economically powerful EU member provided another opportunity for Macron to influence affairs.

Domestically, the French president tried by taking a tough position against the terrorist attacks carried out in the last two years in France to draw to himself the votes of the Far-right and Ms.Marion Le Pen supporters in his fight against the wave of migration.

In the general perspective, what seems about Macron’s performance is dynamism and youthfulness in presenting various initiatives. He, although not reaching results about some of his initiatives, still pursues this method as a new step in France’s domestic and foreign policy.

 Masoume Seifafjeei. Expert IPIS

(The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the IPIS)

[1] - Valerie Pecres ,two term Chairman of the Le de France Regional Council.

2- Eric Zemmour , writer and reporter

3- -Jean-Luc Melanchon

LFI.

4 - Yannick Jadot

5 - Anne Hidalgo

6 - Fabian Roussel

7- Natalie Arthaud

8 - Nicolas Dupont-Aignan  Debout La France

9 - Florian Philippot , Les Patriotes

10 - Antoine Martinez, Volontaire Pour La France, military general and far right

11 - Francois Asselineau, Union Populaire Republicaine, Popular Republican Unionn

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