French Presidential campaign heats up

Well, for some analysis on the current state of the race, we can bring in Renaud Foucault, a senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster University and one of our go-to analysts on French politics. Renaud, it's good to talk to you. Perhaps you can start by giving us an overview of the race as you see it so far. Polls basically suggest that there are two big frontrunners and then everybody else. Yes, there is one absolute massive leader, which is Marine Le Pen. It's been the case for years and years now. Now, at the moment, the number two in the polls is a certain Jean-Luc Mélenchon, so a figure from the far left, which is himself extremely controversial. So if today the polls were right and if we were voting today with those numbers, this would mean that the French would have a choice between far right and far left in the second round, and all the polls indicate that Marine Le Pen would win. But that's not the end of the story. At the moment in France, everyone and their dog is a candidate to the presidential election, and there is a lot of competition within the centre, within the centre-left, the primary of the left. Two big candidates in the centre try to find someone who would be popular enough to make it to the second round and would get a chance to steal back, beat Le Pen. Because Le Pen, at the moment, she's the favourite against every single potential candidate. There's also a very long reserve of people who dream to be a candidate, who see themselves as a potential hero that would save France, but they are still not declared and they might not even run in the end. Yes, but as you say, we basically have these two big leading blocks, the far right and then the far left. So the two extremes and then tons of candidates all throughout the centre. So a lot of fragmentation, which does not seem like the best strategy. Le Monde published an editorial this weekend questioning why the two main centrist candidates, Gabriel Attal and Edouard Philippe, both former prime ministers of Emmanuel Macron, questioning why they don't join forces. What's your take on that? Well, they will join forces. They all tell it when the microphone is off that they will join forces in the end. But this is a bit of those special months ahead of the real election when they try to look at the polls and show, look, I'm the one leading, so you need to stand down for me. And there's a tradition for doing that. So for instance, Emmanuel Macron, the first time he was able to go to the second round because the other centrist, François Bayrou, so he was going to do 6% Macron 14. So he said, OK, I'm voting Macron. Here it's special because it's two past prime ministers of Macron that tried to exist as a centrist candidate, but also they want to make it very clear that they are not Emmanuel Macron because Emmanuel Macron is highly unpopular. So there will be one of the two at the moment, Edouard Philippe, the oldest, the first prime minister of Macron is ahead. But Gabriel Attal is not giving up because it's still quite close. And so this will be something to look at in the coming months. Meanwhile, on the center left, the main issue is a primary organized by the Socialist Party and the party of Raphael Gluckspan. Can you walk us through who the main candidates are there and notably who's participating in that primary and who's running but is not participating in the primary? Yes, yes. So Gluckspan is the last person to have won an election for the center left in France. He won the European election. Of course, the left together with Mélenchon, they also won the last legislative election. But there is this hope that Gluckspan was seen as the providential figure who could unite the center left and could take them possibly as close as possible to Mélenchon and Attal-Philippe and maybe even to the second one. But no, for that, Gluckspan is running on his own platform, which is called Place Publique, but he needs to get the endorsement of the Socialist Party. And so within the Socialist Party, there is the leader of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, who might run. I mean, everyone expecting to run, which would get a chance. Also former presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal. And then there is the ghost of François Hollande. François Hollande is not running, but as much as he left politics extremely unpopular, now he's got some popularity bound. So it's just, you know, it is what the French people do. He wrote a book, he's hanging around, shaking hands, and he's waiting for this moment because somehow deep inside, he hopes that whoever wins the primary will stagnate in the polls and that they will call him back and bring him back as a hero. Whether it will happen, I don't know. Nicolas Sarkozy, for instance, spent all his post-presidential career waiting for that magic moment. It didn't happen. But that's how it works in France. Meanwhile, despite her conviction for misusing EU funds, Marine Le Pen of the far right is officially the candidate for the national rally, though her number two, Jordan Bardella, as we saw, has also been campaigning as sort of a backup candidate. What do you make of the dynamic between the two of them? mentioning too much the corruption stories in the debates right now, because there was only one debate in front of the business lobby. And so it was not the moment. The question is what happens if at some point there is a little moment where she's not running that high. It was a small mistake. Then maybe there will be a bit of noise. But in the meantime, Bardella will stay put because he's still hoping to be prime minister. And as much as it must be very, very hard for him, who saw himself as president, to wait to get this second job and basically no hope to ever run before 10 or 15 years for president, I think he will stay put and try to support her. And again, nothing happens right now, but she's ahead of the poll. She's the favorite. So when there will be big debates, everyone will try to attack her at some point. And then maybe those corruption stories will come back. And maybe she will have to have this composure and this ability to tell a story to voters that, yes, she's the candidate of law and order. Yes, she believes that laws should be enforced, that people should be put in jail, but not her, which is, of course, a tough sell in theory. In practice, she seems to do it very well so far. Some commentators have pointed out that despite France's exceptional summer of record heat waves and forest fires, climate change has not really been a major topic of political debate. Just briefly, what are the issues that you expect are going to shape the campaign in the coming months? There is one massive issue that will not shape the campaign, which is pensions, which is the main issue of France. And that's because both Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen, the main reason I believe they are so popular is charisma and their ability to put that under the rug. So Mélenchon says, we're not going to pay the debt, we just cancel all the debt of France. No problem. Le Pen says, we're going to go back to 62 or 60 year old pension. No problem. Magic money. So that's the big problem. Number one is that the main topic is not discussed. For the environment, it's the topic of Glucksmann. So Glucksmann is pushing in that direction because he believes he's the only one to talk about that and that people care. Whether it works or not, we will see very, very, very soon. For the rest, I think a lot of the debate will be about for anybody with not Le Pen or Mélenchon to give some kind of hope. And largely this will be about a personal story, charisma, say I'm the one with a little bit more insurance, but I'm not, again, yet the same centrist as for the last 10 years. All right. It's going to be an interesting eight months as we approach that presidential election. We'll be following it closely, of course, here on France 24. Renaud Foucault, I thank you so much for your analysis this morning. That's Renaud Foucault, a senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster University and one of our regular analysts on French politics.