Presidential 2022: the end of a volatile and elusive campaign

Thus ends the campaign for the first round of the presidential election.

Long for some - 366 days for Marine Le Pen -, short for others - 37 days for Emmanuel Macron -, it leaves many observers feeling unfinished.

Despite a five-year period disrupted by significant and structuring events ("yellow vests", confinements, Islamist assassination of Samuel Paty, etc.) and a permanent political recomposition (ups and downs of nascent macronism, success of environmentalists in local elections, resistance from the right in its local strongholds…), it ends with a form of sluggish public debate.

Neither effervescence nor enthusiasm in the discussions.

And the promise, say the pollsters, of a possible abstention record on Sunday.

To discover

• Presidential 2022: receive the results of your municipality as soon as they are published

• Compare the programs of the candidates for the 2022 presidential election

• Yves Thréard presents Le Club Le Figaro Presidentielle, our new political program

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After a democratic rebound during the 2019 Europeans, the country is not warding off the apathy that appeared in the first round of the 2020 municipal elections. The day before, the country was caulking against the Covid-19.

In the closed doors of the apartments, some nevertheless believe in a political ferment.

From forums to tweets, everyone then seeks to imagine the new world that will impose itself on us once the virus is gone.

We work on just about everything.

The economy with a sovereigntist turn and the return of the welfare state.

Attention to others with health, old age and ecology while new forms of democracy (citizen convention for the climate) wipe the plaster at the same time.

Of these sketches of debates, what remains on the eve of going to the polls for the supreme election?

The chaotic "return to normal" (succession of waves of Covid-19), the sudden onset of inflation and the war in Ukraine prevented the presidential election from anchoring itself in people's minds.

It is true that the campaigns where an incumbent president is in the running do not provoke the same enthusiasm as the others.

Volatility is characteristic of this elusive campaign

Last fall, the 2022 vintage still promised to be captivating.

The sudden arrival of Éric Zemmour and his unprecedented breakthrough in opinion polls then suggests that the novelty is once again inviting itself to the polls, five years after the election of Emmanuel Macron.

The right, which we thought had been definitively wiped out by the outgoing president, nominates its candidate before Christmas.

The start of interest around Valérie Pécresse suggests that the Macron-Le Pen duel may not be so obvious.

On the left, we wonder about the future of Yannick Jadot, invested by a mobilizing environmental primary when the climate became a significant subject in previous elections.

It is the beginning of the curves which cross, and recross, in polls which have never been so numerous.

A brief moment projected in the second round,

Valérie Pécresse unscrews.

A weighted time, Jean-Luc Mélenchon flies away.

Volatility is one of the hallmarks of this elusive campaign.

The major themes of the ballot are struggling to structure themselves.

One day national identity and immigration.

Then purchasing power, thanks in particular to the unpredictable outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

The closer the first round of the election approaches, the more the televisions open their newspapers with images of the conflict.

Rarely has international politics weighed so much on an election.

On the diplomatic front, Emmanuel Macron crushes his competitors before his overhang takes him too far from the French.

His refusal to enter the battle will have postponed the scheduling of this campaign.

His re-election, which many thought acquired a month ago, now seems less certain.

If he was able to bounce back from the emotion caused by the images of the bombings, his rival Marine Le Pen was able to take advantage of the consequences of the war.

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At a time when the return of the long term is being touted in public debate (reappearance of the Planning Commission in 2020; Édouard Philippe launched his party the following year by promising to

while Jean-Luc Mélenchon demanded of

), the ballot is overtaken by immediacy.

That of the end of the month which is approaching by soaring energy prices, the analysis of form which takes precedence over content in programs such as during meetings and viral controversies on social networks will weigh, Sunday, finally more than the rare televised debates organized in recent weeks.