Presidential election race gathers pace in France

The road to France's presidential election in April has begun in earnest with Valerie Pecresse, the candidate of the mainstream conservative Les Republicains party, making her first major public speech-and failing to impress.

The deadline for candidates to confirm their election entry, with the first round taking place on April 10, is March 4. Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron has yet to formally declare his candidacy to try and win a second five-year term in office, but many of his rivals have already started their campaigns.

France's Conservatives have not won a presidential election since Nicolas Sarkozy's victory in 2007, and Pecresse was chosen through a party primary.

According to France 24's news site, the first major campaign event of a candidate who has described herself as "two-thirds Angela Merkel and one-third Margaret Thatcher" was "meant to energize a sputtering presidential bid rattled by defections and self-doubt", but ended up being "underwhelming".

Other confirmed candidates so far are Marine Le Pen of the far-right Rassemblement National, controversial populist journalist Eric Zemmour, and lower rating left-wing candidates Jean-Luc Melenchon, Fabien Roussel, Christiane Taubira, and Anne Hidalgo, as well as Yannick Jadot, who is described as a pragmatic environmentalist.

After the first round of voting, two candidates will go through to the head-to-head runoff on April 24, which is where the dominance of right-wing candidates in the race behind Macron could prove counterproductive, splitting the vote.

Many polls suggest it is Le Pen who is likely to be Macron's biggest rival and who will reach the second stage, as she did in the 2017 election. But her party is still haunted by the racist image of its previous incarnation, the National Front.

More moderate voices

Pecresse and Macron may be better placed to win the votes of the center-right, who would be uncomfortable with Le Pen. While those who feel Le Pen is not sufficiently right-wing could opt for Zemmour, who earlier this year was fined 10,000 euros ($11,346) by a French court for hate speech over remarks he made on television about young unaccompanied migrants.

This week, the vice-chairman of Zemmour's campaign told television channel France 2 that he had received a call of support from former United States president Donald Trump.

" (He) told Eric Zemmour not to give in, hold firm, stay courageous," said Guillaume Peltier, adding that the call was held "after Donald Trump's office responded positively to our various requests".

In a recent interview with radio station France Inter, Zemmour said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was "without doubt the leader I feel I am closest to, culturally, intellectually".