France: Political parties at a glance

Debout la France (DLF) means "Stand up straight, France" in German translation and was called Debout la République until 2014. The candidate of the national-populist small party is the mayor of Yerres and non-factional deputy Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. The DLF is considered social interventionist and welfare-state oriented. It claims to want to defend the country's national identity.

The La France insoumise (LFI) party is among the French left-wing populist parties. 'Unbending France' is skeptical of the European Union. Its leading candidate is party founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who aspires to a pan-European populism.

Valérie Pécresse is running for the party Les Républicains (The Republicans), which embodies the French bourgeois right. For several decades, the Republicans, together with the Socialists, constituted one of the two major French political camps. However, this traditional spectrum was replaced by La République en marche in the last elections. Valérie Précesse is regional president of the Ile de France region, a politically important Parisian region, and gained experience in government under former President Nicolas Sarkozy. She is the first woman to run for the conservative Republicans and is campaigning for greater security.

The Europe Écologie - Les Verts party is the equivalent of the Greens. For the presidential election, the EU parliamentarian Yannick Yadot enters the race. Determined by primary election, the candidate is considered pragmatic. He wants to withdraw public funds from companies that use fossil energy and advocates a moderate phase-out of nuclear power in the country within 15 to 20 years. At the regional level, the French Greens achieved some electoral successes.

The presidential candidate of the Parti Communiste Francais (PCF) is Fabien Roussel. He wants to increase purchasing power and the minimum wage in the country. In addition, the communist advocates the introduction of a covid tax for companies that were able to profit from the pandemic. Another criterion is to triple the wealth tax.

The candidate of the Socialist Party (Parti socialiste) is Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris. Since Francois Hollande's tenure, the Parti socialiste has been in crisis at the state level. Hidalgo's campaign promises include higher wages and double pay for teachers. Households with a higher carbon footprint should be hit with a climate tax, according to the Paris mayor.

Marine Le Pen of the Rassemblement national (RN), the former Front National, is considered a promising candidate for the runoff. Le Pen has repeatedly been in second place in the polls. The daughter of the radical former party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, she has recently shown herself to be more moderate and has thus risen in the voters' favor. Marine Le Pen is a declared opponent of a multicultural society and sees it as having a damaging effect on the French economy.

La République en marche (LREM) is a party founded in 2016 by incumbent Emmanuel Macron and translates as "The Republic on the Move!". Its positions include liberality as well as European integration. Among other things, it advocates equality between men and women in the workplace and calls for extensive privatization for the public sector. One of Macron's goals is to overcome the division of the French political landscape into right and left. He describes his party's orientation as "progressivism."

The Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA) party was founded in 2009. It stands for anti-capitalist and socialist policies that seek to overcome capitalism and environmental degradation. It has not yet made it into the National Assembly or the EU Parliament. Its candidate is the trade unionist Philippe Poutou.

The far-right author and journalist Éric Zemmour is running for the Reconquéte (Reconquest) movement. He is known for his polemical statements and holds Islamophobic positions. He also sees France on the brink and wants to "reconquer" the country with his movement. During his public appearances, there have been several times of turmoil.

For the Résistons movement, National Assembly deputy Jean Lasalle is entering the race. In his home village of Lourdios-Ichere, the agricultural machinery technician has been mayor without interruption since 1977. Lasalle is considered an atypical politician who wants to resist "finance capital." He already ran in the presidential election in 2017.