With the conflict in Ukraine dominating global headlines, it is easy to miss other happenings in the world right now. I recently stumbled across an article on the French presidential election that piqued my interest. Emmanuel Macron won a landslide election in 2017 over Marine Le Pen and with Macron and Le Pen the two favourites again this time around, it will be interesting to see whether history repeats itself.

Before diving too far into French politics, let’s take a brief overview of the French electoral system. France has a two-round electoral system. In theory, if one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round, she or he can govern, but no contender has ever achieved this. After the first round, there is then a run-off election where the two candidates who received the most votes go head-to-head. The winning candidate of this run-off election is then elected president.

Emmanuel Macron is the current president and, at the time of writing, the favourite to win reelection. Macron is an interesting candidate, having spent time working as an Investment Banker at Rothschild, where he was able to amass both connections and wealth in a very short space of time. He then spent some time in Parliament before founding his own political party - En Marche (rough translation, Forward! or Working!).

Macron’s liberal, progressive movement swept through France and his politics were in stark contrast to those of Le Pen. Macron won the run-off election in a comprehensive fashion, by a margin of more than 30 percentage points. At 39, he was France’s youngest ever President and its youngest head of state since Napoleon. Not a bad resume for a man better known as the guy who married his high school art teacher.

Macron’s journey as president has not been all smooth sailing. He was criticised as being a president for the rich and not doing enough for the working class. His approval rating plummeted in the early years of his presidency. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and with it, a reversal in Macron’s fortunes.

While many prominent world leaders struggled to maintain popularity during the crisis, with the likes of Joe Biden, Scott Morrison and in recent times even Jacinda Ardern all copping criticism, Macron bucked the trend. His popularity skyrocketed over COVID. He acted quickly to establish a vaccine pass and then removed restrictions earlier than predicted, without widespread lockdowns. Macron also impressed on the international stage. He was the first major leader to speak to Putin and won plaudits for his handling of the crisis in Ukraine. Only two weeks ago, it seemed like Macron was cruising to victory.

When Macron was faltering (from 2018-2020), Marine Le Pen’s popularity surged, targeting French working-class voters with promises of better jobs and a hard line on immigration. However, with the COVID pandemic and unrest in Ukraine, Macron was afforded a huge amount of screen time and Le Pen’s popularity dwindled.

However, like the wasp that keeps following you, Le Pen just refuses to go away. Recent opinion polls have her neck and neck with Macron, a remarkable resurgence in a very short space of time.

So what’s accounted for this rise? The first and arguably most influential factor was Macron’s recent announcement to raise the retirement age for superannuation. This was an uncharacteristic blunder from the populist Macron, perhaps signalling over-confidence. Le Pen capitalised on this miscalculation. Her target voter audience of low to middle-income workers was aggravated by the superannuation move and Le Pen sensed an opportunity to take advantage of voter unhappiness.

Another factor in Le Pen’s resurgence is Eric Zemmour, another Far-right French politician whose grassroots campaign has him lying third in the polls, a fair distance off Le Pen and Macron. So how can another far-right candidate be good for Le Pen, you may ask? Put simply, Zemmour is an extremist (he recently stated that Islam and France were not compatible), so he makes even Le Pen seem like a moderate or centrist.

This New York Times quote by Roger Cohen aptly summarises the situation. “By Zemmour outflanking her on the right, he has become the go-to candidate for outright xenophobia and has helped Le Pen in her banalization quest to gain legitimacy and look more presidential by becoming part of the French political mainstream.” With the French election looming on 10 April, has Le Pen been dealt a lucky latehand, with Zemmour unwittingly helping her image and Macron stumbling at the final hurdle?

France is not the first Western democracy to tango with far-right politicians; 2016 and 2017 saw a remarkable shift toward the farright in many democracies. Examples include Brexit, Trump’s election, Le Pen’s rise in France, and the strong showing by the Far-Right Alternative for Germany. The German result was the first time a far-right party had won multiple seats in Germany since the Nazis. Europe’s flirtation with the far-right was buoyed when the Freedom Party of Austria became the first far-right party to hold power in Western Europe. When Biden and the Democrats took back the Senate and the House in 2020, this embrace of far-right politics seemed to be waning.

However, the second wave of the far-right may be lurking around the corner. Viktor Orban just won re-election in Hungary, the Republicans seem poised to take back control in the U.S. later this year, and now Le Pen is well within the margin of error of upsetting Macron. Even in New Zealand, David Seymour has successfully revitalised the Act Party, taking it from a perennial one seat outfit to around 8% of the popular vote.

The French election is just days away now and the result is very much up in the air. Will the incumbent Macron win a second term, or will Le Pen and the second wave of the far-right prevail? As they say in France, “tout est possible” (anything is possible).

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