While seeming distant and trivial, the French election stands out against recent elections in how uncertain and momentous it is. Observing what got us here and what may happen helps us understand how the world will change. Furthermore, it’s an opportunity to see our own country’s traits from an outside perspective.  

Eleven candidates are in the running, but four are worth mentioning. Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the Unsubmissive France party, is in fourth place. Until last week, his name didn’t bear mentioning for who was actually going to take the presidency but he’s now only half a point behind Francois Fillon.

While Fillon still holds the third-place ranking, he’s not likely to win over new voters after news broke that he had his wife and children on government payroll. Melenchon seemed an equal longshot in recent months, but it now seems that repeatedly doing well throughout his brief moments in the limelight has earned him some momentum.

Melenchon is an enemy to globalization and seems willing to go to drastic lengths to stop it. He opposes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which he sees as an affront to national sovereignty, and agrees with conservative opponents that France’s relationship with the European Union (EU) should be “reconsidered.” Nonetheless, his radical views have yet to draw much anger from centrists. Even before his newfound popularity, he garnered praise for his rational and compelling statements during debates.

In France, where the socialist party is an old bastion of tradition, Melenchon sticks out further to the left than most. He supports total redistribution of wealth, including a 100 percent income tax on anyone earning more than $380,000 a year. The recent political climate has turned away from socialism, so it’s not likely that Melenchon will get beyond third place in the polls.

Holding second for the popular vote now is Emmanuel Macron. He created his party, “En Marche!,” about a year ago, making his place in the polls peculiar. While his movement may be new, Macron himself is no outsider. He served as France’s economy minister for one year, and before then was a high-ranking member of President Francois Hollande’s staff.

Macron wants to mainly focus on spurring growth, with a $50 billion investment in infrastructure, renewable energy and job training. Accompanying this, he hopes, would be a significant reduction in corporate taxes and a 2 percent lower unemployment rate. His approach to business growth may be at home in the United States but is radically laissez-faire in the eyes of the French people. 

Macron has mostly come out in support of secularism and supports an almost aggressive pro-immigration policy. This, combined with his desire to spur economic growth, has led to his policies being described as “openness.”

Macron’s immigration policies reflect this. Macron also supports stronger international trade, making his economic stance more based in the recent past than the near future.

The only way one can tell Macron isn’t perfectly tied for first is to look at a large number of polls. In many, he has 23 percent, just as much as his opponent. However, in most of the polls that deviate from the norm, he holds 1 to 2 percent below his primary candidate, Marine Le Pen.

If Macron is identified with an open-door policy, Le Pen can be labelled a hardcore isolationist. While Macron believes bringing in immigrants will stimulate the economy, Le Pen sees them as a source of France’s economic stall. She wants to set an immigration cap of 10,000 immigrants per year. Last year, roughly 230,000 people migrated to France.

For Le Pen, immigration is as much a social issue as an economic one. Her immigration caps seem to go after the jobless rate and seem connected to her proposed cap on people retiring at no later than 60. Promising to close down any radical mosques and immediately expelling all illegal aliens seems more emotional than radical, however.  

Le Pen also wants a referendum on France and the EU, as well as pulling out of international trade agreements like NATO. In contrast to Macron’s fiscal conservative and social liberal stance, Le Pen has highly restrictive approaches to domestic economy. This means less open trade and restricted domestic growth.  

Le Pen has a larger share of the vote, but it seems unlikely that she will gain a majority. Once the first round of elections fails to produce a victor, it’s likely that socialist voters will shift toward him in the second round. Now that Melenchon has gained such popularity, it seems possible that he may take votes away from Macron, leaving an open path for Le Pen.

All of these views seem a little radical, and it seems like normal has no place in French politics. The two major parties in France that until recently had a strong hold over the political climate, have been pushed off to the side, while an entirely new debate has sprung up.  

The next French president will either greatly increase ease of travel and trade or break off from well-established norms and pull the country back from the global stage. The next French president will either embrace globalism or nationalism.

While the outcome of elections in Russia may mean more — we already know the result. The next several weeks for France, however, are highly uncertain, and depending on who wins, will have a significant shift and impact in the ongoing fight between isolation and accessibility.