Emmanuel Macron bids for re-election as war roils Europe

IT IS TURNING out to be one of France’s shortest, and strangest, presidential election campaigns in modern times. Emmanuel Macron, the sitting president, had not yet declared that he was running for re-election as went to press on March 3rd, a day before the deadline. He had been distracted, aides said, by crises: a surge of covid-19 cases in January, and then his vain efforts to persuade Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine. His delayed entry means that it will be a mere five-week full-cast campaign, set against the backdrop of war in Europe. Both factors are likely to favour Mr Macron.Assuming he declares, the president will be the favourite. On March 2nd ’s forecasting model put Mr Macron’s chances of re-election at 88%. It suggests that his likeliest second-round opponent is Marine Le Pen, the nationalist-populist whom he defeated in a run-off in 2017. The next most-probable is now Eric Zemmour. A far-right polemicist who vows to “save France” from the perils of immigration and Islam, he has been convicted of incitement to racial hatred.