France votes in 11-candidate presidential runoff

French presidential election
(Image credit: Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

French citizens head to the polls Sunday to vote in a runoff election that will pare down a field of 11 presidential candidates to the top two.

No one candidate is expected to take an outright majority; rather, four candidates are in contention to make it to the second round: far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen, center-right François Fillon, centrist Emmanuel Macron, and far-left populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Of these, Le Pen and Macron are generally considered the frontrunners in a close race, and Le Pen — an immigration and war on terror hardliner — is thought to benefit from the fear created by Thursday's terrorist attack in Paris.

France has a prime minister as well as a president; the current PM is a member of the Socialist Party. The prime minister is generally tasked with domestic policy while the president's focus is foreign affairs.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The vote between Sunday's winners will be cast May 7. In the meantime, read The Week's guide to France's populist uprising, including a description of the top four contenders.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.