Strategy debates of candidates for French presidential election 2017

One of the reasons for the shrinking electoral support for traditional parties is the emergence of new political movements – “En Marche!” and “La France Insoumise” – around the figures of Emmanuel Macron at the centre of the political spectrum, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left of the PS. Hamon, who is a representative of the left-wing faction of the PS, could neither prevent social-liberal voters from drifting toward the more liberal Macron, nor compete with Mélenchon. The latter started his campaign months earlier and managed to successfully ‘own’ issues such as wealth redistribution and ecological transition, that is, both old and new left issues.

The parliamentary elections in June will be crucial

Despite a disappointing campaign, Marine Le Pen has qualified (21.3 per cent) for the second round of the Presidential election. This result confirms the positive electoral dynamic that Le Pen has initiated since she took leadership of the National Front in 2011: she has received 1.2 million votes more than in the 2012 presidential election. It is unlikely that she will win on May 7th, she is currently polling at 37-38 per cent; however, her challenge is to perform as well as possible in order to continue gaining legitimacy in the perspective of the June parliamentary election and for the 2022 presidential election.

The emergence of “En Marche!” and “La France Insoumise”, and the results of the first round are an earthquake for French politics and in particular for the left as Macron scored 23.8 per cent and Mélenchon 19 per cent. While the presidency now seems to be in Macron’s hands, since he has received the backing of the main candidates eliminated in the first round, except for Mélenchon, all eyes will soon look toward the parliamentary elections that will take place in June. The two-round runoff voting system is detrimental to new political actors, whether centrist or radical: the centrist François Bayrou in 2007 and the radical-right Marine Le Pen in 2012 both scored around 18% in the presidential election in April but then, in the June elections, their parties (Modem and the FN) only obtained three and two seats in the parliament respectively.

However, the crisis in the Socialist Party and the improbable emergence of a centrist majority in the June elections will reshuffle the cards for the recomposition of the French left. Whether it will be to the left with “La France Insoumise” or to the centre with “En Marche!”, is yet to be seen.

Then, both main political parties - Les Républicains (LR) and the Parti Socialiste (PS) – organized open-primaries that took place in November 2016 for the former and in January 2017 for the latter. For Les Républicains, it was even the first time ever in the history of the French right that a political party organized primary elections. The PS already organized primaries in 2006 and 2011. Both these primaries resulted in the dismissal of figures that had exercised power in the past (Alain Juppé and Nicolas Sarkozy within LR and Manuel Valls within the PS), and in the victory of outsider candidates, François Fillon for LR and Benoît Hamon for the PS, who campaigned by appealing to core values of their political families, polarized their position by rejecting more consensual centrist positions.

In parallel to this primary process, Emmanuel Macron, who was unknown to the public three years ago, has emerged as a serious contender to the Presidential office. Minister of the Economy from 2014 to 2016, Macron has resigned from the government in order to launch his political movement “En Marche !” – with a centrist and liberal political line – and could, at the age of 39, become the youngest President France ever had. Paradoxically in the wake of these political shifts, the two radical candidates, Marine Le Pen on the far right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far left, appear as landmarks of the French political landscape as they were both already running for the presidency in 2012.

The polarization of the political offer

Turning to the political positions of the candidates, three observations can be made. First, only 2 out of the 11 candidates in this election are located on the economically liberal side of the political landscape, namely Macron and Fillon. This prevalence of government interventionism in the economic realm remains a specificity of French politics. Second, we discern a strong polarization of the main candidates along the two dimensions of the political landscape (a socio-economic one and a cultural one). Fillon and Mélanchon are at the two extremes of the socio-economic dimension, while Hamon and Le Pen are almost at the two extremes of the cultural dimension. Each of these four candidates occupies a specific and distinct position in the political landscape, offering voters strong policy alternatives. This polarization of candidates’ political positions, and in particular the polarization of the candidates of the two mainstream parties (Hamon and Fillon), leaves a large space for a moderate candidate. Macron attempts to embody this political offer. At first sight, his position is quite distant from the other main candidates, but a closer look shows that he is close to Hamon on the cultural dimension and close to Fillon on the economic dimension. This positioning makes him appeal to broad section of voters across the French political landscape, which results in his favourable performance in the polls.

Campaign dynamics

In theory, such polarized and diverse political alternatives should have led to an enthusiastic debate during the campaign and to a heightened interest from French voters. Despite this polarization, every survey suggests that turnout may be the lowest ever in a Presidential election, even lower than in the 1st round of the 2002 election when the leader of the Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, qualified for the second round eliminating the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin. The political disinterest that surveys are recording is probably due to the numerous scandals that have marked this campaign. Since late January, first Fillon and then Le Pen have been regularly associated with embezzlement scandals, involving them directly or indirectly through their political party. Like a soap opera, the so-called “Fillon Gate” made the media headlines for about two months and has strongly dramatized the campaign, with his opponents calling for him to withdrawn from the race and his supporters blaming the media, the judges and even the President of the Republic for a political manhunt.

In the absence of a clear political debate, campaign dynamics and candidate images may have increasing weight in the decision-making process of undecided voters: three weeks before the first round about 40 per cent of voters remain undecided. So far, polls have measured very different dynamics for the five main candidates. Le Pen consistently scores 22-25 per cent of the vote without any fluctuation for months. Fillon who was leading the polls early 2017, has lost almost 10 percentage-points since the scandals have unfolded and now polls around 18-20 per cent. Benefiting from Fillon’s decline and from the support of the centrist politician - François Bayrou - Macron caught up with Le Pen and also polls at about 22-25 per cent at present. On the left, Hamon polled above 15 per cent after his primary victory in January but has now slided below 10 per cent, as he was unable to impose himself as the leader of a fragmented left. The weak campaign of Hamon strongly benefits the far left candidate Mélenchon who has experienced a boost in polls from 10% to 18-20 per cent in the past two months.

What this overall picture of the 2017 French Presidential race shows is that volatility and indecision are at a record-high level, and the on-going dynamics suggest that the outcome of this election may be uncertain until the very last moment.