If 2016 was the year of Brexit and the surprise election of Donald Trump, 2017 is shaping up to deliver its own new and unpredictable results starting this Sunday. The French presidential elections have in fact in the past months delivered one of the most uncertain competitions in the history of the Republic. With two days to go until the first round, four candidates are competing within three percentage points of one another, all of them in plausible reach of the Palais de l’Élysée. Rocking the foundations of the French political system, which is historically based on a solid bipolarism, the electoral campaigns have seemed to synthesise in a single country all of the strengths and weaknesses of a changing Europe which is looking to Paris to see its future. [...]
Last December on live TV Hollande announced that he had no intention of renewing his candidacy on the basis that he wished to give space for the French left to reunite around a shared leader capable of opposing the advances of the right. Next month the chapter will close on the most unpopular President of the Republic in French history. More important still is the nature of the forces in play that are in a position to claim final victory. Excluding Fillon Les Républicans, who are anyway behind in the polls, all of the other parties or movements lie outside the traditional definition of a political party, a phenomenon that is characterising many other European countries. [...]
Whatever the outcome of the vote it is clear that the French parliamentary system is destined to change, and to do so very quickly given the forthcoming vote for the Legislative Assembly which will enable the future President to create his or her government, a decision which itself will have repercussions across borders. It will be an intense month in France then, with all eyes on Paris to understand the future of Europe.
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