"The French Test," a column on the 2022 French presidential election

History may tell that the French presidential campaign of 2022 started with one of the most common French slurs. On Tuesday when President Emmanuel Macron promised hell to the unvaccinated to convince them to go and get their shot in the arm, he threatened to "emmerder" them (metaphorically, to cover them with, well, shit) until they did.

Everybody is entitled to "emmerder" (active form), or to be "emmerdé" (passive form) by his or her boss, the State, the speed limits, the tax department, or a noisy neighbor at all hours of the day and night. Except for the president of the republic who shouldn’t speak like that. A president is only allowed to swear like a trooper in his bathroom. And even then, whispering or mumbling is strongly recommended.

The outcry which followed his threat was heard well beyond the Hexagone, the geometrical-inspired nickname used for France. Foreign journalists racked their brains to find an appropriate but decent translation. It was an unexpected wake-up call for the most consequential election in decades to be held in this country. Its two rounds will take place on the 10th and the 24th of April, in a bit less than a hundred days.

If any lesson is to be drawn from Macron’s Profanitygate, it’s that the campaign won’t be boring ("emmerdante"- adjective- also works there as this curse is polysemous). The political price of the president’s boldness must not be understated even if it will rapidly fade away. The French like the image of educated leaders. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s oldest far-right party, whatever his provocations, was respected by his worst enemies for his ability to use a tense of French conjugation that had long since fallen into disuse: l’imparfait du subjonctif (using it in a conversation is as prestigious as speaking Hungarian).

That brings us to the peculiar situation of an incumbent president who is not yet a candidate while everyone knows he will seek a second and final term. With a commanding position in the polls, for now, Macron could choose the higher ground and manage both the current wave of Covid and the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union which will last six months. He seems to consider that may be a trap and that time is not ripe for a restrained exercise of power considering the explosive mood in France after two years of pandemic and with some yellow jackets of 2018 ever ready to go to the barricades.

Unless a flurry of scandals and polemics – according to the late president Jacques Chirac "les emmerdes" fly in droves – tank his ambition, Emmanuel Macron appears all but certain to pass the first round. By contrast, it would take a miracle for the left to reach the second one because of its division into half a dozen candidates, often with diverging platforms. The only path would be a strategic voting wave in which an overwhelming majority of voters from the left would quite magically band together behind one name, whatever their sincere preferences, which is all but uncertain.

Who then could face the incumbent president for the second round? Three candidates are already fighting it out, tooth and nail: two females and one man (who unfortunately despises women in power). Valérie Pécresse, the head of the Ile de France region which includes Paris, won in December the primary of her party, Les Républicains, the last heir of the successive Gaullists parties. In other words: the traditional right.

On the far-right, Marine le Pen is another heiress because she inherited her party from her father, le Front national turned Rassemblement national. She was almost sure to pass the first hurdle until a polemicist, a former Le Figaro columnist, Eric Zemmour, decided to throw his hat in the ring, claiming she wouldn’t make the cut. Especially after her sounding defeat against Emmanuel Macron in 2017.

All three are fighting more or less for the same voters, using the same soundbites about the decline of France, a country whose identity is supposedly threatened by immigration and Islam and a pandemic of insecurity. Only one of them will survive in the voting booths.

This column starting mid-January, on a daily basis, aims to guide you through the twists and turns of a French campaign, from the emboldened far right to the decomposed left (Emmanuel Macron is looking for a spot in the middle), or through oddities such as the curious hunt for support from small-town mayors that candidates need to be able to compete, or the amount of public money used for this election.

Every morning, it will tell you where the campaign stands and what is at stake. It will provide also the most significant quotes, translated and explained, the candidates’ most interesting proposals, the latest polls published by us and the insides of the race provided by our political desk.

Thanks for reading and see you soon.