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      Macron and Le Pen Trade Punches in Pivotal French Election Debate

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      He attacked the far-right leader as a Putin stooge. She hit back at him as the president of division and contempt.PARIS — In a bruising debate ahead of the vote on Sunday in the French presidential election, President Emmanuel Macron accused his far-right challenger, Marine Le Pen, of being in the pocket of Russia, and she countered with a withering attack on the “unbearable injustice” of Mr. Macron’s economic measures.Interrupting each other and accusing each other of lying, they traded barbs on everything from the environment to pension reform for almost three hours on Wednesday, without ever quite delivering a knockout blow.“When you speak to Russia, you speak to your banker,” Mr. Macron said, suggesting that Ms. Le Pen would be incapable of defending French interests because “you depend on Russian power” and on the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.Mr. Macron was alluding to a 9.4 million-euro loan, then worth $12.2 million, made to Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party, formerly the National Front, from a Russian bank in 2014. The loan is still not repaid and, after the collapse of the bank in 2016, is now held by a company with ties to the Russian military.“I am a totally free woman,” Ms. Le Pen retorted.She has been a strong supporter of Mr. Putin for many years, approving of his annexation of Crimea in 2014, before recalibrating her position after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “It is dishonest to prevent me from getting a loan from a French bank and then criticize me for seeking it abroad,” she said.After a long campaign, it was their first face-to-face encounter in a debate since 2017, when Mr. Macron made a mockery of Ms. Le Pen’s incoherent plans to take France out of the eurozone, to such effect that the electoral contest was effectively over. He went on to trounce her, 66.1 percent to 33.9 percent.President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen prior to their first debate since 2017. Pool photo by Ludovic MarinThis time, Ms. Le Pen has dropped plans to leave both the European Union and the eurozone as part of a successful attempt to moderate her image, although not the anti-immigrant and nationalist character of her platform. While she suffered through some difficult moments in the debate, appearing lost on the subject of the ballooning debt France incurred in battling Covid-19, she generally held her own.Ms. Le Pen’s campaign has prospered through close attention to the pocketbook problems of millions of French people facing rising inflation. She stuck close to these issues in the debate, telling Mr. Macron that his attempt to raise the retirement age to 65 from 62 was “an intolerable injustice.” In her program, she said, full pensions would be payable between the ages of 60 and 62.When Mr. Macron suggested she would not be able to pay for this and was being “dishonest” with people, Ms. Le Pen shot back: “Don’t give me lessons on the financing of my project, because when we are counting 600 billion euros in debt, you should be modest.”This exasperated Mr. Macron. Crossing his arms, occasionally slumped or with his hand on his chin, by turns ironic and supercilious, he ran the risk of looking arrogant or condescending, a criticism frequently leveled at him over the past five years.The debt, he said, was incurred under his “whatever-it-takes” response to the pandemic that offered paid furlough programs, subsidies for shuttered businesses, and a wide array of other assistance.“What would you have done?” he demanded more than once of Ms. Le Pen, without ever getting a direct response. She did not seem to have one and looked flummoxed. It was, Mr. Macron noted, the worst pandemic in a century.The latest polls give Mr. Macron 55 percent of the vote and Ms. Le Pen 45 percent. Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe election is being closely watched in part because a Le Pen victory, although improbable, appears possible. It did not seem any less so after the debate, a sharp confrontation of alternating fortunes that in the end had the feel of a draw.The latest polls, published before the debate, give Ms. Le Pen 45 percent of the vote to Mr. Macron’s 55 percent. With her anti-NATO views, her perception of the United States as an intruder in Europe, and her insistence on a foreign policy “equidistant” from Washington and Moscow, she would almost certainly pose a threat to the allied unity forged by President Biden in response Russia’s war in Ukraine.In an interview on the French TV station BFM just before the debate, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said: “While I do not think that I have the right to influence what happens in your country, I want to say I have a relationship with Emmanuel Macron and I would not want to lose that.”He added that Ms. Le Pen was wrong in her views about Russia-Ukraine issues. “If Le Pen understands that she has made a mistake, our relationship could change,” he said.Hostile to the European Union, and fiercely critical of Germany, Ms. Le Pen would also menace the foundation of the process of European integration, built since 1945 on Franco-German reconciliation.Ms. Le Pen called Mr. Macron a “punitive ecologist” and mounted an effective assault on his highly personal way of governing that has reduced the role of the legislature.She criticized him for pushing people who could not afford it to buy expensive electric cars, for example, and for demanding a transition to a post-carbon economy “that should be a lot less rapid” given the hardships many people face.Mr. Macron accused Ms. Le Pen of being a “climate skeptic.” She retorted that he was “a climate hypocrite.”It was Mr. Macron’s attempt to raise diesel fuel prices for environmental reasons that triggered the Yellow Vest protest movement that started in 2018.“The Yellow Vests told you they wanted more democracy and they were not heard,” she said. “I think the biggest problem at the end of these five years is the disunion, the division, that you have caused among the French people, the feeling of contempt they have, the feeling of not being listened to, of not being heard, of not being consulted.”Now was the time, she added, “to stitch French democracy together” again.How Ms. Le Pen would do this through a political program certain to antagonize France’s more than six million Muslims, as well as many foreigners living in France, is unclear. While she insisted she had nothing against Islam as a religion, she said that an Islamist ideology was “attacking the foundations of our Republic.”What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More

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      Your Wednesday Evening Briefing

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      Here’s what you need to know at the end of the day.(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Wednesday.President Biden with military leaders in the White House Cabinet Room.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times1. Russia test-launched a new missile as its forces in Ukraine unleashed artillery and rocket strikes in the eastern Donbas region. President Vladimir Putin said the new intercontinental ballistic missile should cause anyone threatening Russia to “think twice.”The Russian Defense Ministry said the new missile could deploy nuclear warheads at hypersonic speeds anywhere in the world but it needed further testing before deployment.In Ukraine, the air force has bolstered its operations after receiving spare parts shipments coordinated by the U.S. But in the devastated city of Mariupol, citizens and soldiers sheltering in an abandoned steel plant may have only hours left before it falls. They vowed to fight until the “last drop of blood.” President Biden met top U.S. defense officials, a day after promising to send more artillery to help Ukraine. The U.N. Secretary General, António Guterres, requested to meet with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to discuss “urgent steps to bring about peace.” Travelers heading to O’Hare Airport in Chicago yesterday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times2. The C.D.C. said a mask mandate for airplanes and other public transport “remains necessary for the public health.” It said it had asked the Justice Department to appeal the Florida judge’s ruling that struck down the federal mask requirement on planes, trains, buses and other modes of transportation. The debate over the mandates comes as a nationwide poll found that 56 percent of Americans still support masking on public transit, with only 24 percent opposed. Times reporters took a closer look at how Americans are responding to the confusion over guidelines. And Covid cases are up again in some areas: New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, warned today of another spike driven by two new versions of the Omicron variant. In other Covid news, there are concerns about the alarming rise in chronic student absenteeism in the U.S., spurred by the pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron and his opponent, Marine Le Pen, faced off tonight.Pool photo by Ludovic Marin3. President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, debated ahead of Sunday’s French presidential election. But what they said could matter less than how some voters feel about Macron: They hate him. A veteran political journalist called the level of loathing “unprecedented.” It stems, he thinks, from perceptions of Macron as an elitist. Le Pen herself takes every opportunity to remind voters of that as she campaigns. She referred at one rally to “words of a power without empathy.” The televised debate was crucial for Le Pen’s long quest to build her credibility and continue softening her image. Macron was under pressure to defend a five-year record tested by a series of social and economic crises. Though polls show that Macron holds the lead, it’s possible many French voters may simply stay home. The ranch in Sante Fe, N.M, where “Rust” was being filmed. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press4. New Mexico regulators faulted the producers of the movie “Rust” for the death of a cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, who was shot during a scene in which the actor Alec Baldwin had to draw a gun. Hutchins was shot and killed on Oct. 21 when the gun, which was not supposed to be loaded with live ammunition, went off as Baldwin pointed it at the camera. Baldwin and other producers have been named in lawsuits seeking damages.New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau said that the film’s producers “knew that firearm safety procedures were not being followed on set and demonstrated plain indifference to employee safety.” The agency issued a $136,793 penalty, the maximum allowed..William Husel at his murder trial in Columbus, Ohio. Pool photo by Barbara Perenic5. A doctor in Ohio was acquitted of murdering his patients, who overdosed on fentanyl, the powerful opioid. The verdict, on 14 counts, brought an end to one of the state’s largest murder cases, which set off a debate about end-of-life medical care. The doctor, William Husel, was charged in 2019 after two hospital pharmacists raised concerns that he had been prescribing unusually high doses of fentanyl to gravely ill patients. Husel called it “comfort medication” to treat patients in severe pain. Prosecutors said he was abusing sick patients. Russia’s Daniil Medvedev during the 2021 Wimbledon tournament.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images6. Wimbledon will bar Russian and Belarusian players from competing at this year’s tournament in London. What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More

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      in World Politics

      Making Sense of the 2022 French Elections

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      Even as a Ukrainian missile strike has sunk a Russian warship, events in France are arguably even more important. The first round of the Presidential elections have thrown up the same two candidates for the final round as last time. On one side is “le Président des riches” Emmanuel Macron and on the other is Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader who risen in popularity in France.

      FO° Insights is a new feature where our contributors make sense of issues in the news.

      [embedded content]

      Florence Biedermann on Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron and the French Elections

      In this episode, we have the former chief editor of Agence-France Presse explain what is going on in France. You can read what she has to say below.

      This is the first time in French political history that the extreme right is so close to the winner of the first round. 

      Why is Marine Le Pen so popular? 

      She really focused on a program for social matters, on social questions, on the cost of living and this is the main worry of the French people right now.

      After the war in Ukraine, the price of energy has risen considerably. There is a stronger inflation and it is now one of the main topics for the French people. So she managed to put aside all the more extreme side of her program on immigration, of changing the institutions, and her resistance to the EU, and she really focused on the daily life of the people with small incomes, on their difficulties and has insisted that Emmanuel Macron was a kind of an elitist who was far away from those daily worries of the French people. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Has Marine Le Pen detoxified the Le Pen name? 

      And that’s how she managed to somehow detoxify her brand, because for years she has been associated, of course, with extreme views and immigration. A few years ago, she was still against the EU, she wanted to withdraw from the EU. 

      She is still very much a euroskeptic, but she gave up this project. She also gave up the fact that she wants to get out of the euro and she styled herself as a kind of innocuous housewife, a cat lover who raised her children on her own. She has presented herself as someone running an ordinary life and being close to ordinary people. And it really worked pretty well when you see the voting results now. 

      After Trump and Brexit, could France be in for a surprise result? 

      So of course the big question now is whether she can win or not. I mean, all the polls still give Macron as the winner, but we know that polls failed before in predicting the victory of Trump, and the victory of Brexit. So everybody is pretty careful and obviously there is nervousness in the camp of Macron because he’s now campaigning really hard, which he didn’t do before the first round because he was busy with the war in Ukraine. 

      So obviously there is a chance that she can win, especially because one of the measures proposed by Macron is very unpopular as it is to postpone the retirement age from 62 to 65 and if this election ends up finally being a kind of referendum on this question, then he may lose. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      What would a victory for Le Pen mean for France and Europe as a whole? 

      So for France on the international scene, a victory for Marine Le Pen would really be a disaster. France is one of the main countries trying to make the EU more dynamic, more efficient, which does not interest her. She wants to present France as a sovereign country where French laws would be more important than European laws. Let’s say you can really compare her to Viktor Orbán. She’s the same kind of leader.

      And then of course in the EU with one of the main leaders being eurosceptic that would be a disaster. Also, she’s kind of very reluctant towards NATO. And let’s not forget she was an admirer of Vladimir Putin for years. She even needed to borrow from a Russian bank to finance her campaign. So definitely the image of France internationally would be completely downgraded. 

      This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Le Pen Backs NATO-Russia Reconciliation and Reduced French Role in Alliance

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      PARIS — Rejecting a “herd-like conformity” with the Biden administration, Marine Le Pen, the French far-right candidate for the presidency, said Wednesday that France would quit NATO’s integrated military command if she were elected and would seek for the alliance “a strategic rapprochement” with Russia.As Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on, Ms. Le Pen effectively signaled that her election would terminate or at least disrupt President Biden’s united alliance in confronting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and perhaps create a breach in Western Europe for Mr. Putin to exploit.Dismissing multilateralism, blasting Germany, criticizing the European Union, relegating climate issues to a low priority, attacking “globalists” and maintaining a near silence on Russia’s brutal assault in Ukraine, Ms. Le Pen gave a taste of a worldview that was at once reminiscent of the Trump presidency and appeared to directly threaten NATO’s attempts to arm Ukraine and defeat Russia.A lurch to the far right by France, a nuclear power and permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, would realign the world, with unpredictable and disruptive consequences.In a wide-ranging 75-minute news conference devoted to international relations, and apparently conceived to bolster her credentials on the global stage, Ms. Le Pen said France would remain in NATO and respect its core Article 5, which says an attack on one alliance member is an attack on all.But, she added, “I would place our troops neither under an integrated NATO command nor under a European command.”“I would place our troops neither under an integrated NATO command nor under a European command,” Ms. Le Pen said.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockHer position, she said, was “no submission to an American protectorate exercised on European soil under the cover of NATO” — a stance she compared to that taken by Gen. Charles de Gaulle in 1966, when he took France out of NATO’s integrated military command, where it remained until 2009.Her position, she said, did not signal “submission to Moscow.” But her promise to withdraw France from the command was consistent with the policy of “equidistance” from great powers she said she would pursue if she defeats the incumbent, President Emmanuel Macron, in a runoff vote for the French presidency on April 24.Polls show Mr. Macron with 53 to 55 percent of the vote, ahead of Ms. Le Pen with 45 to 47 percent. But the political situation is volatile as the president, scurrying around the country, scrambles to make up for a lackluster initial campaign. The French nationalist extreme right is closer to attaining power than at any time since World War II.The proposed rapprochement with Russia, “once the Russian-Ukrainian war is over and settled by a peace treaty,” would even be in the interest of the United States, Ms. Le Pen suggested, because Washington would not be served by a “close Russian-Chinese union.”Ms. Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, formerly the National Front, a fiercely anti-immigrant party, dismissed the Biden administration as “too aggressive toward Beijing,” saying the United States “needs enemies in order to unite its allies under its domination.”It was one of very few references to the United States, none of them positive, as Ms. Le Pen embarked on a kind of world tour of her preoccupations that also omitted Russia but did include a long exegesis of why France has solemn obligations in Lebanon.“France is not France without grandeur,” she declared.A protester outside the venue where Ms. Le Pen had her news conference. Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNor is it France without protests. The news conference was briefly disrupted by a protester carrying a heart-shaped image of Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Putin. The protester was wrestled to the ground and dragged out by security guards.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4U.S. support. More

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      in UK Politics

      Sweden and Finland cold join Nato ‘within weeks’ after Russian invasion of Ukraine

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      Sweden and Finland are poised to join Nato “within weeks” following the invasion of Ukraine, despite warnings from Moscow against any expansion of the military alliance.The leaders of both nations met on Wednesday to discuss regional security after decades of organising their own protection. Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson did not confirm the move, but Swedish outlet SVD reported that she and and opposition party leaders had agreed a goal of joining in June. “When Russia invaded Ukraine, Sweden’s security position changed fundamentally,” her party said in a statement earlier this week.Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin said after the meeting: “I won’t give any kind of timetable when we will make our decisions, but I think it will happen quite fast. Within weeks, not within months.” Marin, whose country shares an 810-mile border with Russia, said it was important to reach consensus in Finland, which fought Soviet invaders during World War Two and has since been militarily non-aligned.Public opinion in Finland has taken a U-turn on NATO, with the most recent poll by private broadcaster MTV showing 68% of respondents in favour of joining, with only 12% against.Sweden was a neutral state during World War Two and has not fought a war for over 200 years.Once members of Nato, the Nordic countries would benefit from Nato’s defence clause, which makes it mandatory for all members to defend an ally under attack.Earlier this week, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Nato’s further expansion would “not bring stability to the European continent”.Meanwhile, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the door for membership in the alliance remains open for both countries.“It is a sovereign decision of any nation that wants to join Nato to apply for membership, which they so far have not done … We are forcing no one into Nato,” Rob Bauer, the head of Nato’s military committee, said.Additional reporting by agencies More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden vows to tackle ‘grave threat’ of untraceable ‘ghost guns’ – as it happened

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      Key events

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      3.06pm EDT

      15:06

      Biden announces ghost gun restrictions, seeks to end ‘terrible fellowship of loss’

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      14:41

      Biden: Ghost guns pose ‘especially grave threat’

      1.45pm EDT

      13:45

      Modi call ‘constructive’, White House says, but no agreement over Russian oil

      11.56am EDT

      11:56

      Biden and Modi pledge collaboration over Ukraine

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      Biden to announce restrictions on ‘ghost guns’

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      15:06

      Biden announces ghost gun restrictions, seeks to end ‘terrible fellowship of loss’

      Joe Biden said it was “basic common sense” to want untraceable, so-called ghost guns off the street, during a White House address to announce new firearms restrictions.
      In an event at the Rose Garden attended by numerous survivors and families of victims of gun violence, the president said he was clamping down on the kit-form guns to try to prevent others joining the “terrible fellowship of loss.”
      He also took a swipe at Republicans in Congress, and the gun rights lobby, including the national rifle association (NRA), that have opposed his efforts to enact reform.
      “The gun lobby tried to tie up the regulations and paperwork for a long, long time. The NRA called this rule I’m about to announce extreme,” Biden said. More

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      in Elections

      Macron to Face Le Pen for President as French Gravitate Toward Extremes

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      President Emmanuel Macron and the hard-right leader Marine Le Pen will compete for a second time in a runoff on April 24.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, in the runoff of France’s presidential elections.With 92 percent of the ballots cast on Sunday counted, Mr. Macron, a centrist, was leading with about 27.4 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 24.3 percent. Ms. Le Pen benefited from a late surge that reflected widespread disaffection over rising prices, security and immigration.With war raging in Ukraine and Western unity likely to be tested as the fighting continues, Ms. Le Pen’s strong performance demonstrated the enduring appeal of nationalist and xenophobic currents in Europe. Extreme parties of the right and left took some 51 percent of the vote, a clear sign of the extent of French anger and frustration.An anti-NATO and more pro-Russia France in the event of an ultimate Le Pen victory would cause deep concern in allied capitals, and could fracture the united trans-Atlantic response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.But Mr. Macron, after a lackluster campaign, will go into the second round as the slight favorite, having fared a little better than the latest opinion polls suggested. Some had shown him leading Ms. Le Pen by just two points.Marine Le Pen speaking after the first-round results were announced on Sunday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe principled French rejection of Ms. Le Pen’s brand of anti-immigrant nationalism has frayed as illiberal politics have spread in both Europe and the United States. She has successfully softened her packaging, if not her fierce conviction that French people must be privileged over foreigners and that the curtain must be drawn on France as a “land of immigration.”Ms. Le Pen’s ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia are close, although she has scrambled in recent weeks to play them down. This month, she was quick to congratulate Viktor Orban, Hungary’s nationalist and anti-immigrant leader, on his fourth consecutive victory in parliamentary elections.“I will restore France to order in five years,” Ms. Le Pen declared to cheering supporters, appealing to all French people to join her in what she called “a choice of civilization” in which the “legitimate preponderance of French language and culture” would be guaranteed and full “sovereignty reestablished in all domains.”The choice confronting French people on April 24 was between “division, injustice and disorder” on the one hand, and the “rallying of French people around social justice and protection,” she said.Mr. Macron told flag-waving supporters: “I want a France in a strong Europe that maintains its alliances with the big democracies in order to defend itself, not a France that, outside Europe, would have as its only allies the populist and xenophobic International. That is not us.”He added: “Don’t deceive ourselves, nothing is decided, and the debate we will have in the next 15 days is decisive for our country and for Europe.”A polling station in Pontoise on Sunday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesLast week, in an interview in the daily Le Parisien newspaper, Mr. Macron called Ms. Le Pen “a racist” of “great brutality.” Ms. Le Pen hit back, saying that the president’s remarks were “outrageous and aggressive.” She called favoring French people over foreigners “the only moral, legal and admissible policy.”The gloves will be off as they confront each other over the future of France, at a time when Britain’s exit from the European Union and the end of Angela Merkel’s long chancellorship in Germany have placed a particular onus on French leadership.Mr. Macron wants to transform Europe into a credible military power with “strategic autonomy.” Ms. Le Pen, whose party has received funding from a Russian and, more recently, a Hungarian bank, has other priorities.The runoff, on April 24, will be a repeat of the last election, in 2017, when Mr. Macron, then a relative newcomer to politics intent on shattering old divisions between left and right, trounced Ms. Le Pen with 66.9 percent of the vote to her 33.1 percent.The final result this time will almost certainly be much closer than five years ago. Polls taken before Sunday’s vote indicated Mr. Macron winning by just 52 percent to 48 percent against Ms. Le Pen in the second round. That could shift in the coming two weeks, when the candidates will debate for the first time in the campaign.Reflecting France’s drift to the right in recent years, no left-of-center candidate qualified for the runoff. The Socialist Party, long a pillar of postwar French politics, collapsed, leaving Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left anti-NATO candidate with his France Unbowed movement, to take third place with about 21 percent.Supporters of Mr. Macron in Paris on Sunday.James Hill for The New York TimesMs. Le Pen, who leads the National Rally, formerly the National Front, was helped by the candidacy of Éric Zemmour, a fiercely xenophobic TV pundit turned politician, who became the go-to politician for anti-immigrant provocation, which made her look more mainstream and innocuous. In the end, Mr. Zemmour’s campaign faded, and he took about 7 percent of the vote.Mr. Zemmour immediately called on his supporters to back Ms. Le Pen in the second round. “Opposing Ms. Le Pen there is a man who allowed 2 million immigrants to enter France,” Mr. Zemmour declared.The threatening scenario for Mr. Macron is that Mr. Zemmour’s vote will go to Ms. Le Pen, and that she will be further bolstered by the wide section of the left that feels betrayed or just viscerally hostile toward the president, as well as by some center-right voters for whom immigration is the core issue.More than half of French people — supporters of Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Zemmour and Mr. Mélenchon — now appear to favor parties that are broadly anti-NATO, anti-American and hostile to the European Union. By contrast, the broad center — Mr. Macron’s La République en Marche party, the Socialist Party, the center right Republicans and the Green Party — took a combined total of about 40 percent.These were numbers that revealed the extent of anxiety in France, and perhaps also the extent of distrust of its democracy. They will be more comforting to Ms. Le Pen than to Mr. Macron, even if Mr. Mélenchon said his supporters should not give “a single vote” to Ms. Le Pen.He declined, however, to endorse Mr. Macron.At Ms. Le Pen’s headquarters, Frederic Sarmiento, an activist, said, “She will benefit from a big transfer of votes,” pointing to supporters of Mr. Zemmour, but also some on the left who, according to polls, will support Ms. Le Pen in the second round.Immigrant families awaiting emergency accommodation outside the Paris city hall last April.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“I am very worried, it will be a very close runoff,” said Nicolas Tenzer, an author who teaches political science at Sciences Po university. “Many on the left will abstain rather than vote Macron.”Mr. Macron gained the immediate support for the second round of the defeated Socialist, Communist, Green and center-right candidates, but between them they amounted to no more than 15 percent of the first-round vote. He may also benefit from a late surge in support of the Republic in a country with bitter wartime experience of extreme-right rule.In the end, the election on Sunday came down to Mr. Macron against the extreme right and left of the political spectrum, a sign of his effective dismantlement of the old political order. Now built essentially around a personality — the restless president — French democracy does not appear to have arrived at any sustainable alternative structure.If the two runoff qualifiers are the same as in 2017, they have been changed by circumstances. Where Mr. Macron represented reformist hope in 2017, he is now widely seen as a leader who drifted to the right and a top-down, highly personalized style of government. The sheen is off him.On the place of Islam in France, on immigration controls and on police powers, Mr. Macron has taken a hard line, judging that the election would be won or lost to his right.Addressing his supporters after the vote Sunday, he said he wants a France that “fights resolutely against Islamist separatism” — a term he uses to describe conservative or radical Muslims who reject French values like gender equality — but also a France that allows all believers to practice their faiths.A polling place at the Versailles town hall.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHis rightward shift had a cost. The center-left, once the core of his support, felt betrayed. To what extent the left will vote for him in the second round will be a main source of concern, as already reflected in Mr. Macron’s abrupt recent catch-up paeans to “fraternity,” “solidarity” and equality of opportunity.Throughout the campaign, Mr. Macron appeared disengaged, taken up with countless telephone calls to Mr. Putin that proved ineffectual.A comfortable lead in polls disappeared in recent weeks as resentment grew over the president’s detachment. He had struggled during the five years of his presidency to overcome an image of aloofness, learning to reach out to more people, only to suffer an apparent relapse in the past several weeks.Still, Mr. Macron steered the country through the long coronavirus crisis, brought unemployment to its lowest level in a decade and lifted economic growth. Doing so, he has convinced many French people that he has what it takes to lead and to represent France with dignity on the world stage.Ms. Le Pen, who would be France’s first woman president, is also seen differently. Now in her third attempt to become president — Jacques Chirac won in 1995 after twice failing — she bowed to reason (and popular opinion) on two significant fronts: dropping her prior vows to take France out of the European Union and the eurozone. Still, many of her proposals — like barring E.U. citizens from some of the same social benefits as French citizens — would infringe fundamental European treaties.The leader of the National Rally, formerly the National Front, toned down her language to look more “presidential.” She smiled a lot, opening up about her personal struggles, and she gave the impression of being closer to the day-to-day concerns of French people, especially with regard to sharply rising gas prices and inflation.But many things did not change. Her program includes a plan to hold a referendum that would lead to a change in the Constitution that would ban any policies that lead to “the installation on national territory of a number of foreigners so large that it would change the composition and identity of the French people.”She also wants to bar Muslim women from wearing head scarves and fine them if they do.Polling booths in Trappes on Sunday. The first round of voting saw the highest abstention rate in decades.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe abstention rate Sunday, at between about 26 and 28 percent, was several points above the last election. Not since 2002 has it been so high.This appeared to reflect disillusionment with politics as a change agent, the ripple effect of the war in Ukraine and lost faith in democracy. It was part of the same anger that pushed so many French people toward political extremes.Aurelien Breeden More

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      in UK Politics

      UK to send 120 armoured vehicles to Ukraine after PM meets Zelensky

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      The UK has vowed to send 120 armoured vehicles to Ukraine following a meeting between Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Downing Street said Britain would also dispatch a new anti-ship missile systems to support the country against the Russian invasion.The announcement followed talks between the two leaders in the Ukrainian capital, where Mr Johnson made a surprise visit on Saturday.It is understood to be the first time the pair have met in person since the Russian invasion was launched on 24 February. Downing Street said on Saturday the prime minister was in Kyiv to “demonstrate the UK’s steadfast solidarity with Ukraine” and to discuss military and economic support with Mr Zelensky. More