No surprises. On Sunday 24th April, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will dispute the occupation of the Élysée palace for the next five years. The first round has broadly certified what the polls predicted, although for a brief period it seemed that Macron's advantage in the first round could become tighter. In the end, and in the absence of 100% official data at the time of writing, the La République en Marche candidate's four-point advantage allows him to face the second round with a certain tranquility.
Although the final ballot will be between the same two candidates as in 2017, nothing will be the same as that election in which Macron won 65.5%. Now, although it's still to be seen how the election campaign will unfold, there is no indication that it will be a re-run. The difference that was then 30 points now does not exist and there were even some surveys prior to the first round which spoke of very little difference at all - or even the most daring, of a technical tie. Either way, only if left-wing voters were to desert Macron would Marine Le Pen stand a chance.
The far-right candidate withstood the presence of a rival in her own political space - namely, Eric Zemmour - who at one point seemed capable even of ousting Le Pen, but remained at 7%. Interestingly, Zemmour has put Le Pen in focus before the electorate and allowed her to exploit economic measures and punish Macron with proposals that are populist but with impact in the classes with least purchasing power.
The results of this Sunday have certified the disappearance of an historical party - that of the French Socialists. Its candidate, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, with a poor result of around 2% of the vote, has confirmed that the good times have all gone and it seems surprising now that between 2012 and 2017 the first secretary of the PSF was president of the Republic. On a smaller scale, something similar happened to the party that occupies the traditional space of the right, Les Républicains, which got a poor 5% of the vote.
The French presidential election has shown that projecting yourself in the mirror of a glorious past is of little use if the proposals do not connect with the electorate. It seems easy to understand, although there are often parties that are reluctant to read it correctly and are confident that it will be the voters who will move, even if they have no reason to.