With the coronavirus crisis accelerating the pace of politics, the campaign for France’s April 2022 presidential election is already getting underway. This contest is the key to the entire political system, including the parliamentary elections slated for June 2022. After all, the presidency still today enjoys the monarchic-style powers it assumed with Charles de Gaulle’s 1958 constitution, passed at the height of France’s war in Algeria.

Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic — the most important crisis to hit France since it was driven out of North Africa — president Emmanuel Macron has adopted a warlike vocabulary. In recent months in particular, he has emphasized his role as the head of political and military power in France, guaranteeing order and security despite the turmoil.

Since his election in 2017, Macron has proven to be the most authoritarian president in decades. The repression of the gilets jaunes protests led to 3,100 arrests and left 2,495 people wounded, and a new global security law this fall bans the circulation of videos of police officers. This itself prompted massive demonstrations, with up to half a million people protesting the new measures.