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- 01 30, 2025
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SO KEEN ARE the French to evict any leader they vote into office that the language even has a word for it: . No French president has been re-elected for 20 years. This April, five years after Emmanuel Macron seized the presidency in his first attempt at winning elected office, voters will decide whether to keep him on for a second term. ’s election model, launched on February 2nd, suggests that they will. It puts Mr Macron’s chance of re-election at 79%. If he wins, the 44-year-old will break yet another rule of French politics. suggests that Mr Macron’s most serious challenger is the candidate of the centre-right Republicans, Valérie Pécresse. Yet on February 2nd it put her chances of becoming France’s first female president at only one in eight. The model gives the nationalist Marine Le Pen even worse odds: one in 17. Even this is far better than the chances for Eric Zemmour, a far-right polemicist, whose entry into the race dented Ms Le Pen’s poll numbers; his current polling average of just 13% and poor showing in hypothetical match-ups give him a 1% chance of victory. On the left, no candidate has even as much as him.