The story in the French presidential race

The controversial, yet poignantly funny, 2015 novel by French author and poet Michel Houllebeck Saumission , To Add, in English) refers to the age-old dilemma of French society. And it is a prediction about the 2022 French presidential elections that portrays the type of Islamophobia in current French society, a carry-over effect of the colonization of north-east Africa.

In Houlebeck’s darkly comic masterpiece, which mixes fantasy with reality, France finds itself in the midst of a political crisis in 2022. The leader of the National Front (a far-right party), Marine Le Pen, is considered to have increased in popularity. To oppose Ms. Le Pen, the Socialist Party forms an alliance with the newly formed Muslim Brotherhood party, with additional support from the right-wing union for a popular movement. Someone named Mohamed Ben-Abs becomes president and then Islamic law is established in France. Women are curtailed, polygamy is encouraged, anti-Semitism is spread, and university professors are made irresistible offers if they convert to Islam. President Ben-Ebbes campaigned to expand the European Union like a new Roman Empire by including North Africa, led by now-Islamic France.

Real-life politicians like Marine Le Pen and François Hollande deserve to be ‘soumison’. But not the future leader, then 37 years old, named Emmanuel Macron. Mr Macron’s Party, La Republique En Marche! Will be formed in 2016, and he will run for presidential election the following year, becoming the youngest French head of state since Napoleon.

Under the Fifth Republic constitution, France has a two-round voting system. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote in the first round on 10 April – which is likely an election – the top two candidates will contest in a second round run-off on 24 April. The French election is a struggle between the right wing. Wings and leftist parties, including far-right and extreme left. However, this election campaign has been the farthest right in the modern history of France.

Subject and candidate

Insecurity, crime and immigration-related social inequality are Ms. Le Pen’s favorite topics. He has promised a referendum on immigration and to rewrite the constitution to ensure “France for France”. With the focus on rising energy prices due to the Ukraine crisis, Ms Le Pen is trying to shrug off her past relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Then there’s the former TV pundit, Eric Zemour, who has been called the ‘French Donald Trump’ of the Reconquest Party, known for his provocations on Islam, immigration and women. Rafael Lorca, author of The new masks of the far-right. Interestingly, Mr Zymore’s bigotry has softened Le Pen’s image and possibly made her acceptable to a wider range of voters.

Valerie Pecresse is a candidate for centre-right Les République. Ms Pecres, who described herself as “one-third Margaret Thatcher and two-third Angela Merkel”, also condemned the mass influx of immigrants and the growth of Islamism in France. The left-wing populist veteran leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, sees himself as a “clever turtle”, outranking some rabbits in the race. However, it is unlikely that he will create magic in this election.

Macron’s tenure

In 2017, the world saw the meteoric rise of a politician, when the Elysee Palace welcomed its youngest resident. During the war in Europe, Mr Macron is seen as a far more statesman than most others. At the same time, he has been instrumental in maintaining the unity and power of the European Union in global politics, especially after the exit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel from the helm of Germany. But, Mr Macron is not entering the wildcard in 2022, and his ‘magic’ is to be tested through the lens of his performance. He had to go through many testing moments during his first term of office. The first was the Gillette Jones or Yellow Vest protest that began in November 2018 over Mr Macron’s decision to increase diesel taxes. Then came the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was a defining factor in his re-election bids for all office-bearers.

Mr Macron’s goal of bringing France’s unemployment rate to 7% by the end of this five-year mandate in 2022 was hit by COVID-19. The pandemic brought its approval rating down to 40% in 2021. Mr Macron set himself up for conflict with those who refused vaccination, “intensifying his rhetoric against France’s minority of non-vaccinated people – less than 10% of the population – in part.” as a way to establish political battle lines for the election”, as The Guardian reported.

Many critics have seen Mr Macron’s first term as “sad” for French Muslims. Laïcité, the French brand of secularism, attracted widespread discussion with the adoption of a ‘separatism law’ in the summer of 2021. Many believe this is a political ploy to lure right-wing voters towards Mr Macron.

what is unexpected

Ms. Le Pen is Mr. Macron’s closest opponent before the first round this time. Ms Le Pen and Mr Zemour’s combined vote share is projected to be higher than that of Mr Macron in the first round. No one knows how the voter will behave when he has only two options, especially in the complex social structure of current France, in the backdrop of the pandemic and Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Historically, three winners of the first round lost in the second round of French elections – François Mitterrand in 1974, Giscard d’Estaing in 1981 and Lionel Jospin in 1995. As Ms Le Pen is gaining momentum, opinion polls predict Mr Macron to follow her but within an acceptable margin of error.

What if there is a high rate of abstinence among left-wing or centrist voters? In a bid to inspire undecided voters along with his supporters, Mr Macron has warned of the risk of a Brexit-style mess as polls show a hard-fought second-round run-off between him and Ms Le Pen .

Houellebecq certainly got the pulse of French society and its politics, whatever the election results. A few months before the 2022 elections, Houlebeck came up with his new novel, ‘Anantir’ (Anihilate, Destroy or Oblirate), written against the backdrop of the 2027 elections. Well, in ‘Anantir’, Mr Macron – who has not been named – is supposed to be the winner in 2022. What if Houlebeck now writes a sequel set in the background of 2032? A 44-year-old former investment banker named Emmanuel Macron and his centrist politics will certainly play a balancing act in the story. It is probably wise to wait until the 2022 ballots are counted before predicting the nature of the ‘Submission’ and/or ‘Destruction’!

Atanu Biswas is Professor of Statistics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.