With the end of France summer vacation season, the election campaign to replace Emmanuel Macron as president next May is bursting to life, with an unusually large and broad field of candidates forming to lead the European Union largest country and only nuclear-armed power.
Some will not get the support they need from sponsors and their political camps to make it onto the starting line when the first round of voting is held on April 18. Still, a crowded field could boost far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, just as it did for her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002, when the record 16 candidates splintered the first-round vote and created an electoral earthquake that sent shockwaves through French politics for a generation.
Le Pen the Clear Favourite
After decades of trying, Marine Le Pen fourth campaign for the presidency is already shaping up as the strongest opportunity for her nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally party to take power. Polls have for months suggested she is the front-runner and could possibly sail into the winner-takes-all runoff on May 2 as the first-round vote leader, a first for her and a dramatic shift in French political dynamics.
She trailed Macron in the 2017 and 2022 first-round voting and then lost decisively to him in round two. This time, it would be a major upset if the 58-year-old does not advance to the second round. Le Pen has worked for years to distance herself from her father extremism and is already reaping the rewards at the ballot box: since 2024, National Rally has become the largest party in parliament powerful lower house.
She got another boost in July when a Paris appeals court cleared her path for another presidential campaign, shortening a ban on seeking elected office that a lower court had imposed over embezzlement charges. The ruling removed what many analysts had considered the last significant legal obstacle to her candidacy.
With Le Pen as president, the EU would be significantly weakened, said Gilles Ivaldi, a researcher at Sciences Po university who specialises in populism and radical right-wing politics. Such an outcome would put a politician who has long been hostile to the bloc of 27 nations and many of their collective rules and policies in charge of one of the EU most important member states.
De Villepin Enters the Fray
Among the most notable newcomers is Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister under Jacques Chirac who heads the La France Humaniste party. Speaking to BFM TV on Sunday, he said he would confirm his candidacy once the election campaign has officially begun, adding that he was ruling out taking part in a primary, calling it the latest gimmick for the desperate.
De Villepin reserved most of his criticism for Edouard Philippe, the Horizons party leader and another former prime minister who has been campaigning aggressively since mid-summer. De Villepin argued that Philippe is playing into the hands of Marine Le Pen by entering into a form of one-upmanship with his proposals to restrict immigration to Mayotte, the overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that has become a flashpoint in France immigration debate.
Philippe was hosted on Sunday in Tourcoing by Gerald Darmanin for the start-of-season rally of his political movement Populaires. In mid-August, the justice minister officially announced his support for his friend of twenty years in the presidential race, giving Philippe a significant boost in the centre-right lane of the contest.
Left Divided, Centrists Seek Unity
On the left, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure announced on Sunday that he will take part in the party primary election, joining Raphael Glucksmann, the main rival in the social-democratic primary. Glucksmann took aim at Jean-Luc Melenchon of France Unbowed, saying he had gone beyond all acceptable limits and that the democratic left must show that it is capable of breaking with those who sow chaos.
The fragmentation on the left could once again benefit Le Pen, as voters on the left and centre split their support among multiple candidates, leaving the far right with the largest single bloc of first-round support. A poll last week put Melenchon in contention for the runoff, a prospect that alarms many centrist and right-wing voters who fear a repeat of the polarising dynamic that has characterised recent French elections.
Centrist Gabriel Attal, another former prime minister appointed by Macron, stated he had never ruled out a primary. His comments came after more than 200 elected French politicians signed a column in Le Figaro calling for the centrist and right-wing bloc to hold a primary election to identify a single candidate able to take on the far-left and far-right in a united front.
Challenges Ahead for Europe Second-Largest Economy
The race comes as France grapples with multiple overlapping challenges, including the disruptions of Donald Trump presidency on transatlantic trade and security, the ongoing war in Ukraine, rising energy costs driven by conflict in the Middle East and persistent social tensions over immigration and economic inequality. No French presidential election campaign this century has taken place in such choppy geopolitical waters.
The outcome will have significant implications beyond France borders. As the EU second-largest economy and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the next French president will play a central role in shaping European defence policy, climate regulation and the bloc relationship with both Washington and Beijing at a moment when the post-war international order is under unprecedented strain.
With the first round still seven months away, the field is likely to narrow considerably as candidates struggle to gather the 500 signatures from elected officials required to qualify. But the breadth of the current field, stretching from far-left to far-right with a fragmented centre, underscores the depth of the political crisis that has gripped France since Macron first won the presidency in 2017 on a promise to reinvent the political landscape.
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