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As the race to replace Macron starts to take shape, both camps are seeking to win back lost voters. | POOL photo by Chalinee Thirasupa\/EPA-EFE<\/p>\nMacron successfully broke that duopoly in 2017, when the then-37-year-old campaigned for president on a pro-market, socially liberal platform with the ambition of uniting moderates of all walks of life.<\/p>\n
His victory was followed by an exodus of both leadership and voters from the Socialists and Les R\u00e9publicains. Centrists gravitated to Macron and his allies, while hardline voters were drawn to more radical voices \u2014 Le Pen on the right, and anticapitalist leader Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon on the left.<\/p>\n
The 2022 presidential election proved humiliating for both parties. The conservatives won less than 5 percent of the vote and the Socialists nabbed just 1.7 percent. Le Pen once again made the runoff, with M\u00e9lenchon finishing closely behind her.<\/p>\n
As the race to replace Macron starts to take shape, both camps are seeking to win back lost voters. | POOL photo by Chalinee Thirasupa\/EPA-EFE<\/p>\n
Popularity remains an issue for both parties, but things are looking up. Les R\u00e9publicains have found themselves back in government following Macron\u2019s ill-fated decision to call snap elections last year. The Socialists, after watching M\u00e9lenchon dominate two consecutive presidential elections on the left, reluctantly joined forces with him. The pan-left movement that emerged<\/a> ended up shocking the political establishment by winning the vote.<\/p>\n Reclaiming leadership<\/p>\n As the race to replace Macron starts to take shape, both camps are seeking to win back lost voters and, eventually, reclaim their former places atop the right and left aisles of French politics.<\/p>\n One high-ranking member of government from Les R\u00e9publicains, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, thinks the process is already in motion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macron successfully broke that duopoly in 2017, when the then-37-year-old campaigned for president on a pro-market, socially liberal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[63192,33184,33,34,2000,299,1105,36,29773,38,25476,33181,43,44,33182],"class_list":{"0":"post-150990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-anne-hidalgo","9":"tag-edouard-philippe","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-emmanuel-macron","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-far-right","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-francois-hollande","17":"tag-french-politics","18":"tag-gerald-darmanin","19":"tag-jean-luc-melenchon","20":"tag-macron","21":"tag-marine-le-pen","22":"tag-nicolas-sarkozy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}