Casablanca – From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (18:00 GMT) today, French voters will be casting their ballots to deliver their verdict on Emmanuel Macron’s presidency and determine the fate of their country’s leadership.
Around 48.7 million people are eligible to vote in this year’s presidential election. The winner will be in charge of the European Union’s second-largest economy and its sole nuclear power.
According to Harris Interactive, 70% of French voters thought the presidential campaign was “disappointing.”
Emmanuel Macron is up against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has been energized by a slick electoral campaign.
Out of the 12 contenders seeking to be elected to France’s highest office, Macron and Le Pen are said to be the leading, most likely candidates to advance to the second round in two weeks.
The first estimates of today’s vote will be available at 8 p.m (6 p.m GMT) following the closure of the last voting stations. The Ministry of the Interior will provide the first numbers on the participation rate, which is expected to decline this year.
According to numerous analyses, Marine Le Pen and the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon have been making progress for several days, significantly narrowing the gap with Emmanuel Macron, who entered the campaign late.
The other contenders appear to have slipped behind these three, most notably the conventional and relatively moderate right-wing candidate Valerie Pécresse and the other, far-right candidate Eric Zemmour.
The end of the Macron era?
Macron’s “statesman” involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war appears to have elicited mixed reactions among French voters.
His unrelenting attempts to appeal to Putin to end his military campaign have boosted his standing among supporters who are keen to present him as an example of level-headed and sound leadership in times of crisis, but critics have maintained that the president’s obsession with continental politics has come at the expense of the day-to-day concerns of ordinary French.
In addition, Macron is said to have paid little attention to the electoral campaign as he has been preoccupied with Europe’s reaction to the Ukraine crisis. Earlier this month, he conducted only one national gathering, and observers such a show of confidence may take a huge blow with surprising results from today’s voting.
At the same time, while taking advantage of this situation, Le Pen started a campaign focusing mostly on domestic concerns, notably purchasing power, which is said to remain the major worry of most French people.
As Le Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland has put it, Le Pen’s campaign strategy has been to focus on the cost of living as a way of taking advantage of Macron’s “near toxic unpopularity with the many millions of French voters who see the incumbent president as arrogant, elitist and contemptuously out of touch.”
Political observers have cautioned that if there is a significant level of abstention, the projected Macron-Le Pen showdown in the second round might be overturned. But others expect a surprising result that would see Jean Luc Melenchon face Macron in the second round in two weeks.
And while the incumbent president is widely favored to win a second-round showdown with Le Pen, a Macron vs Melenchon confrontation would be more difficult to call.
