France will vote to elect a new president in April, and the jostling for position among potential candidates is well under way. The current president, Emmanuel Macron, has yet to declare his candidacy but is expected to run again. His second-round opponent from 2017, the far-right populist Marine Le Pen, has already launched her campaign. Alongside them on the ballot will be Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, Yannick Jadot, representing the Green movement, and a candidate from the centre-right, to be chosen by Les Républicains, on 4 December. The far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, who has no political party, could declare an outsider bid.
How the process works
Would-be candidates have until 4 March to present the 500 signatures of elected officials supporting their run, which the law requires. Some of the politicians hoping to be candidates will by then have withdrawn from the field, but in 2017 11 candidates were on the official ballot.
A first round is to be held on 10 April, and in the likely event that no candidate receives a majority of the votes, a second round runoff will be held two weeks later, featuring the two leading candidates from the first round.
Polls have shown that the most likely candidates to enter the run-off are Macron and Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally) party.
