French elections 2022: Why it matters to the wider world as Russia-Ukraine war continues?

Twelve candidates are vying for the presidency -- including incumbent and favorite President Emmanuel Macron who is seeking a new term amid a challenge from the far-right.

With war singeing the European Union’s eastern edge, French voters will be casting ballots in a presidential election whose outcome will have international implications. France is the 27-member bloc’s second economy, the only one with a UN Security Council veto, and its sole nuclear power. And as Russian President Vladimir Putin carries on with the war in Ukraine, French power will help shape Europe’s response.

Twelve candidates are vying for the presidency — including incumbent and favorite President Emmanuel Macron who is seeking a new term amid a challenge from the far-right.

Here’s why the French election, taking place in two rounds starting Sunday, matters:

NATO

Russia’s war in Ukraine has afforded Macron the chance to demonstrate his influence on the international stage and burnish his pro-NATO credentials in election debates. Macron is the only front-runner who supports the alliance while other candidates hold differing views on France’s role within it, including abandoning it entirely. Such a development would deal a huge blow to an alliance built to protect its members in the then emerging Cold War 73 years ago.

Despite declaring NATO’s “brain death” in 2019, the war in Ukraine has prompted Macron to try and infuse the alliance with a renewed sense of purpose.

“Macron really wants to create a European pillar of NATO,” says Susi Dennison, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “He’s used it for his shuttle diplomacy over the Ukraine conflict.”

On the far-left, candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon wants to quit NATO outright, saying that it produces nothing but squabbles and instability. A NATO-skeptic President Melenchon might be a concern especially for Poland, which has a 1,160-kilometer border with territory now controlled by Russia.