Who’s who: Macron’s top challengers for 2022

The French presidential election is more than a year away, but the jostling has already begun.

President Emmanuel Macron may still be the favorite but he has no shortage of opponents hoping to take advantage of any fumbles. With a raging coronavirus pandemic, a return of the political debate around immigration and Islamist radicalism and an incumbent whose last campaign showed the electoral landscape can be upturned, the race is anything but predictable.

Here’s POLITICO’s guide to Macron’s most serious challengers (and their challengers too).

Marine Le Pen — The National Rally

President of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen is still remembered for the 2017 election when Macron crushed her in a televised debate and then went on to defeat her in the polls. Currently an MP, she has struggled to find her voice during the coronavirus crisis. Even so, the far-right leader can still count on the support of roughly a quarter of the French electorate, making her the front-runner for the first round of voting in 2022. A renewed spotlight on terrorism and Islamist radicalism has given her the opportunity to regain momentum on the political stage while staying in her comfort zone. Once a Frexiteer, Le Pen has progressively softened her tone on Europe. Rather than leaving the EU, she is now calling for its transformation into “an alliance of European nations.”

Internal rivals: No one inside the National Rally is questioning her legitimacy. Florian Philippot, her former right-hand man who was hailed as the architect of the party’s “de-demonization,” left the party in 2017 and is now trying to rally anti-vaxxers and COVID-skeptics — without much success. Le Pen’s niece Marion Maréchal also left the party. Though Maréchal is not expected to run in 2022, she intends to make her voice heard and is being closely watched by Le Pen’s team. Eric Zemmour, a far-right columnist who declined Le Pen’s offer to join her party’s list in the 2019 European election, is also reportedly considering running.

Chances of making it to the second round: High. Le Pen is ahead of her rivals, including Macron, in several recent polls. 

Chances of winning: Low but not negligible. With the election running over two rounds if no candidate secures an absolute majority, early second-round polls on a Le Pen/Macron scenario put her not far behind the president, who may find it harder this time around to rally his opponents to vote for him in the second ballot to keep Le Pen out of power. Breaking through France’s two-round majority system remains Le Pen’s biggest challenge, but a high abstention rate could make it easier to surmount.

Xavier Bertrand — Les Républicains  

Conservatives felt robbed of the presidency in 2017 when a fake-jobs scandal took down their candidate, François Fillon, clearing the path for Macron. Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France region in northern France, is among those who survived the Les Républicains storm relatively unscathed. Having burnished his credentials as a potential champion of the moderate right, he has already emerged as the winner from a duel with Marine Le Pen, prevailing over the far-right leader in the 2015 regional elections. Among his strengths is a capacity to reach out across the aisle, sometimes to his own camp’s bewilderment. His post as a politician in working-class northern France will help blunt the anti-elite rhetoric that will undoubtedly be a feature of the upcoming campaign.

Internal rivals: The conservative field is quite crowded, with other heavyweights such as Valérie Pécresse, president of the Paris region, said to be preparing to run. A certain Michel Barnier recently teased a potential comeback to national politics after leading the European Union’s Brexit talks, but his candidacy has mostly elicited skepticism from his fellow conservatives. One of them told local newspaper Le Parisien: “He has great looks but is very, very boring.” With friends like that …

Chances of making it to the second round: Bertrand is currently the best positioned after Le Pen to challenge Macron, according to recent polls that place him third in the first round. Still, his best shot probably relies on the president stumbling badly.

Chances of winning: If he makes it to the second round to face Le Pen, he would likely rally French voters behind him.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon — France Unbowed

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a veteran politician and a former Socialist, is the leader of the left-wing movement France Unbowed. A staunch critic of Emmanuel Macron, he presents himself as Marine Le Pen’s nemesis, even as he has become increasingly Euroskeptic over the years. An MP, Mélenchon announced his third bid for France’s highest office in November, more than a year and a half before voters head to the polls. Declaring his candidacy so early could theoretically give him the first-mover advantage if the left decides to rally behind one candidate, but Mélenchon — a hard leftist with a history of going solo — is unlikely to benefit from such an eventuality. Nicknamed “the French Hugo Chávez” by his critics, Mélenchon is known for his ability to galvanize crowds. His movement was among the first to put the environment at the center of its political program, providing him with decent green credentials. 

Internal rivals: Mélenchon’s leadership style includes doing his best to make sure no internal rivals can emerge. The journalist and MP François Ruffin has become a popular figure within the France Unbowed movement, but Ruffin has so far shown no interest in running in 2022. Mélenchon’s main competitors for France’s left-leaning votes are outside his movement and within the Socialist and the Green parties.

Chances of making it to the second round: Mélenchon is polling at around 10 percent, ahead of both the Socialists and the Greens. But his chances are low if he runs without the backing of other left parties. In the 2017 presidential election, Mélenchon ran alone and arrived fourth.

Chances of winning: Low. Even if he makes it to the second round, he is unlikely to rally more moderate voters.

Anne Hidalgo — The Socialist Party

Her enemies call her Queen Anne to mock her detached demeanor, but Hidalgo’s supporters are now hoping to turn the nickname into a rallying cry for a charge at the Elysée presidential palace. Currently serving as mayor of Paris, Hidalgo is one of the few Socialist heavyweights to have survived hurricane Macron’s 2017 sweep to the presidency. While she has racked up plaudits from environmentalists for transforming the banks of the Seine into promenades and attempting to ban high-polluting cars from the streets of Paris, she hasn’t been able to shake a reputation for champagne socialism and has yet to prove that her appeal can translate outside of the “périph” ring road that encircles the capital. Her opponents depict her as a condescending hipster who hates cars — not a good look in Yellow Jacket territory — but recent polls showed that some 46 percent of respondents had a positive opinion of her, no small feat in today’s polarized political climate.

Internal rivals: The once-mighty Socialist Party has lost its luster but many of its long-time members are still fighting for a potential shot at the presidency, including the party’s former first secretary, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis and former Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg.

Chances of making it to the second round:  Low if she goes it alone. Polls currently have her at around 8 percent. Her odds would get better if she could convince the left to unite behind her, but that will be a tall order given that the Greens have indicated they want to be in the driving seat in any potential partnership.

Chances of winning: Currently low. Good if she gets to second round and faces Le Pen, but that’s a big if.

Yannick Jadot — The Greens

Even if he has so far refused to say it aloud, it’s no secret that Yannick Jadot wants to lead the Greens in next year’s presidential race. His party has been galvanized by the “green wave” that swept through France during the 2019 European elections and the 2020 municipal elections, and the longtime MEP is convinced the Greens will be able to attract voters from both the left and right of the political spectrum. A former Greenpeace activist, Jadot wants to campaign on an environmentally friendly platform with a strong social component, rallying the private sector behind him while ridding the Greens of the image of a party of vegans, bicyclists, tree huggers and reflexive critics of everything from nuclear power to planes. His moderate stance has opened him up to criticism from rivals who, unlike Jadot, have built their careers and political bases in France, rather than Brussels.

Internal rivals: Jadot’s first task will be to convince the Greens that he’s not too moderate to represent the party, as some suggested. He is likely to be up against Eric Piolle, the green mayor of the city of Grenoble in southeastern France, and Sandrine Rousseau, an economist and vice president of the University of Lille, in a primary expected in September. Piolle doesn’t have Jadot’s fame but he is trying to show that the Greens can run a large city and be reelected. Rousseau, a former party spokesperson and a feminist luminary, is campaigning for a “radical” ecological transition and gender equality. 

Chances of making it to the second round: Low. Greens have historically underperformed in presidential elections and surfing the green wave ain’t an easy sport. If Jadot wants to make it that far, he will have to not only strike an alliance with the party’s left-wing rivals; he will have to convince them to make him their standard-bearer. Negotiations will be complicated, with the Socialist Party and France Unbowed making the case that the Green party is no longer the only one with green ideas. 

Chances of winning: Low. Latest polls suggest Jadot would get just 7 percent of the votes in the first round.

Jules Darmanin, Elisa Braun, Laura Kayali, Louise Guillot and Marion Solletty contributed reporting for this story.