Category Archives: Marine Le Pen

France election: five key takeaways and moments ahead

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Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen face tense runoff after first round of voting in presidential race

A lacklustre French presidential election campaign overshadowed first by the Covid pandemic and then by the war in Ukraine has exploded into life, propelling Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen into what looks like being a brutal runoff.

Here are five key takeaways from the first round of voting as France and wider Europe brace for a nervous two weeks before the deciding 24 April vote that will determine who occupies the Élysée Palace for the next five years.

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France presidential election 2022 live: Macron to face Le Pen in second round, according to projections

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Follow the latest updates as projections predict a run-off between president, Emmanuel Macron, and Marine Le Pen, from the far-right National Rally

Plenty of Macron merch on offer for those at the outgoing president’s post-vote pep talk:

The abstention rate, likely to prove crucial in this election, is likely to be between 25% and 26.5 %, according to French pollsters – higher than in the previous 2017 first round (22.2%), but not at 2002’s record level of 28.4 %.

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France election: calls begin for voters to block far-right Le Pen

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As in 2017 and 2002, debate over whether leftwing voters should back centrist, stay home or not vote at all

France now faces a frantic electoral fortnight after Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen made it to the second round of the presidential election, with the two remaining candidates attempting to convince the country’s voters – many of whom do not support them – that they deserve their vote in a fortnight.

For many of France’s almost 48 million voters, this will be a difficult time, particularly for those on the left of the political spectrum. Many will be asking themselves whether to select what they consider the least bad option between the centrist Emmanuel Macron or far-right Marine Le Pen, or stay at home and not vote at all.

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How Le Pen tried to soften image to reach French election runoff

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Centrist Macron may find it hard to make criticism of far-right opponent’s racist, anti-Muslim platform stick in next round

When the far-right Marine Le Pen posed for a selfie with a smiling teenager in a Muslim headscarf in Dunkirk on the northern coast, it was a turning point in the presidential campaign.

Le Pen wants to ban the Muslim headscarf from all public places, including the streets, calling it a “uniform of totalitarian ideology”. So after posing happily with a girl in hijab, she was attacked for going soft by her far-right rival, the TV pundit Éric Zemmour. “Let me teach you about humanity,” Le Pen shot back at one of Zemmour’s lieutenants in a TV debate that went viral. “What would you have done? Pulled her veil off and mistreated her?”

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Macron on 28% to Le Pen’s 23% in projected first round French election results

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Centrist leader predicted to win first round of presidential race against far-right candidate

France faces a brutal two-week campaign over the country’s future, as the centrist incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, faces the far-right Marine Le Pen for the presidency, positioning himself as a pro-European “progressive” against what he calls her anti-Muslim, nationalist programme and “complacency” about Vladimir Putin.

Macron topped Sunday’s first round of the French presidential election with 28.5% of the vote, ahead of Le Pen’s 23.6%, according to initial projected results.

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French election 2022: Projected result and latest vote tallies

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Emmanuel Macron is asking French voters for another term as president. The far right’s Marine Le Pen, and 10 others, are challenging him. Find out the latest results department by department

Live blog: latest developments and reaction

The French president is elected by a direct vote. There is no electoral college, and no involvement of parliament. A candidate who wins more than 50% of the popular vote is elected. If, as seems likely, no candidate wins that majority in the first round, the top two candidates go through to a run-off election two weeks later, on April 24.

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French presidential election could see historically low turnout, pollsters say

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80% of those polled felt the campaign was ‘poor quality’, with many complaining of a lack of ideas or vision

A majority of French people feel the 2022 presidential election campaign has been poor quality and never really got off the ground, which could lead to protest votes and a historically low turnout in Sunday’s first round, pollsters and analysts have said.

An Ifop poll this month found 80% of French people felt the campaign was “poor quality”. Voters have complained of a lack of new political ideas or vision, and few solutions to their problems, after two years of the Covid pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a cost-of-living crisis.

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France elections: Macron’s lead over Le Pen narrowing as vote nears

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Centrist incumbent and far-right rival go into last day of campaigning after a week of sparring in media

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen attacked each other in media interviews and walkabouts as final polls showed the gap between them narrowing on the last day of campaigning before Sunday’s first-round vote.

Macron said Le Pen was “lying” to voters about her “racist” manifesto programme, which includes banning the Muslim headscarf, and accused her of “complacency” in her ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

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The rise and rise of France’s far-right Marine Le Pen

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National Rally leader is closing gap on Emmanuel Macron in polls for this month’s presidential election

From her housing estate in northern Marseille, Elisabeth, 68, who once voted for the left, will return a ballot for the far-right Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election this month. “People used to think Marine was nasty,” she said. “Now they realise she’s not. Other politicians are taking her ideas. They all talk like her now.”

Elisabeth left school at 16 and worked at a shoemaker’s, in factories and as a housekeeper, but her €800 pension barely covers bills and food. “I live on credit, overdrawn by the middle of the month,” she said. “I make a weak stew and it lasts me three days. But Le Pen will cut taxes and put money in our pockets.” She agrees with Le Pen’s anti-immigration stance. She feels “Europeans” are becoming outnumbered in multi-ethnic northern Marseille and worries about crime. “I’ve been mugged twice, once for a necklace, once for a cigarette,” she said. Society is tense and divided, she feels, but Le Pen will “calm things down”.

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Macron kickstarts re-election campaign as Le Pen gains ground

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Voters trust French president over his handling of war in Ukraine but accuse him of ducking political debate at home

The French president Emmanuel Macron is aiming to kickstart his re-election campaign this week with walkabouts outside Paris and a big rally in the capital, after the diplomatic pressures of the war in Ukraine limited his canvassing at home – leading to a dip in the polls and worries of a low turn-out.

Macron, 44, is hoping next month to be the first French president to win re-election in 20 years, but he has recently dropped two to three points in the polls as the gap between him and the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen narrows. While he remains favourite the next 10 days of campaigning are seen as fraught and risky amid anger over the cost of living, disillusionment with the level of campaign debate and politics in general.

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Macron to launch re-election race, as rivals face pro-Russia allegations

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The war in Ukraine is the biggest international crisis to overshadow a presidential race in decades

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is expected to launch his campaign for re-election this week in a race shaken by the war in Ukraine, with key candidates under attack over previous pro-Russia stances.

Macron has left the official declaration of his candidacy to the last minute because of the war, but he must make a move before the 4 March deadline to register.

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French rightwing candidate mocked after dog joins her party

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Valérie Pécresse hounded over allegations that dog named Douglas signed up for Les Républicains presidential primary

French politicians have long embraced domestic animals – from Emmanuel Macron’s rescue dog, Nemo, who once peed on a fireplace during an Elysée meeting, to the far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s hobby of breeding Bengal cats.

But a dog called Douglas from the south of France is causing ridicule for the rightwing presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse.

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Marine Le Pen calls off events and appeals for mayors’ endorsements

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Far-right candidate yet to secure the 500 signatures needed to qualify for first round of vote

The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has postponed several campaign events because she is yet to secure the 500 endorsements from elected officials needed to qualify for the first round of the vote.

Le Pen, the leader of the nationalist-populist National Rally, is lying second in the polls and is widely considered to be Emmanuel Macron’s most likely opponent in a second-round runoff on 24 April.

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Accidental killing of hiker fuels bitter debate over hunting in France

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Woman hit by stray bullet during wild boar hunt sparks row over stricter regulations before presidential election

The accidental killing of a hiker by a teenager who was hunting wild boar has rekindled a bitter debate over stricter regulations of France’s hunting tradition before the presidential election in April.

The 25-year-old woman was walking with a friend along a marked trail near Aurillac in the heavily forested Cantal region when she was hit by a stray bullet on Saturday. She died instantly.

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Valérie Pécresse rally focuses on immigration as threat from rivals grows

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Les Républicains’ presidential choice promises crackdown after defections to Macron and rise in far-right’s polling

The rightwing French presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse vowed to crack down on immigration as she held her first big rally on Sunday amid competition from the growing far right and defections from her party to the centrist leader Emmanuel Macron.

“There is no sovereignty without borders,” Pécresse said on stage in Paris as more than 6,000 people waved French flags in support of the first female presidential candidate for Les Républicains, the traditional rightwing party of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

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Le Pen feud deepens as French far-right leader’s niece withdraws support

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Marine Le Pen calls Marion Maréchal’s decision not to back presidential bid ‘brutal, violent and painful’

France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen has described her niece’s decision not to support her presidential campaign as “brutal, violent and painful”.

Marion Maréchal, who dropped Le Pen from her name in 2018, said she was considering whether to transfer her allegiance to Éric Zemmour, who is even further to the right.

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French election polls: who is leading the race to be the next president of France?

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Emmanuel Macron and the far-right hopeful Marine Le Pen look set to be joined by numerous other candidates in the French presidential election. We look at the latest polling, and introduce some of the most likely candidates

France will vote to elect a new president in April, and the jostling for position among potential candidates is well under way. The current president, Emmanuel Macron, has yet to declare his candidacy but is expected to run again. His second-round opponent from 2017, the far-right populist Marine Le Pen, has already launched her campaign. Alongside them on the ballot will be Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, Yannick Jadot, representing the Green movement, and a candidate from the centre-right, to be chosen by Les Républicains, on 4 December. The far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, who has no political party, could declare an outsider bid.

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Macron and the ‘French Trump’ trap Gaullism’s heirs in a political vice

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With just months to go before presidential polls, the centre-right Les Républicains, under pressure from both flanks, are scrambling for a suitable candidate

Six months before a presidential election and France’s mainstream right finds itself squeezed – between the hammer and the anvil as they say here – without a candidate and facing an existential threat from either side.

On one flank are the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, a polarising television pundit who wants to talk about immigration, identity and Islam – the three i’s – and ban “non-French” names such as Mohamed.

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Hard-left presidential candidate and far-right pundit meet in French TV ‘cockfight’

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Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Éric Zemmour slug it out in much-publicised two-hour debate

Two men; two completely different visions for France.

In a debate that lasted more than two hours, the hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the hard-right Éric Zemmour, expected to be a presidential candidate, went head to head on prime-time television on Thursday evening.

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Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo to run for French presidency

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Socialist to campaign on her story of ‘overcoming class prejudice’ in bid to win back voters for the left in 2022

The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has announced a bid for the French presidency, saying that as a woman with working-class, immigrant roots she will try to repair the anger and divisions in French society and win back low-income workers disillusioned with the left.

“The Republican model is disintegrating before our eyes,” Hidalgo told supporters gathered on the docks in Rouen, Normandy. She warned of growing inequalities, saying: “I want all children in France to have the same opportunities I had.”

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