French Election 2017: A Guide to the Candidates
No one French candidate is likely to receive 50 percent of the votes needed in Sunday’s presidential election to avoid a runoff. Voters are picking from 11 candidates, two of whom will advance to the second round in May, and one, eventually, to the Élysée Palace. The election pits candidates from across the political spectrum—from the National Front’s (FN) Marine Le Pen on the far right to firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far left—against one another.
Here are the top five candidates, listed according to where they stand in the latest polls.
Macron — En Marche!
The 39-year-old independent has come out of nowhere to become the front-runner. Recent polls project he’ll earn 23 percent of the vote in the first round and beat whoever he faces in the second., Macron was virtually unknown before former Prime Minister Manuel Valls appointed him economy minister in 2014—a post he held for two years before breaking away from President François Hollande’s Socialist government to launch his own political movement, , or “On the Move!” Macron’s centrist platform, which he says aims to “reconcile the two Frances that have been growing apart for too long,” advocates business-friendly economic policies that aim to loosen France’s labor laws and its famed 35-hour workweek; defends the European Union and NATO; and opposes immigration quotas, calling instead for strengthening the EU’s external borders and devising a united European policy on immigration. Apart from unsubstantiated rumors about his personal life (his marriage to Brigitte Trogneux, his former high-school teacher who is 24 years his senior, has prompted speculation about the pair), Macron has largely avoided scandals the likes of which have plagued some of his rivals.
