Editor's note: In the first round of the 2022 French presidential election on April 10, President Emmanuel Macron secured 27.6 percent of the vote while his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen won 23.4 percent, progressing both candidates to the second round on April 24. Given that one of the issues facing France is how to tackle the Ukraine war, a question that begs an answer is in what ways will the crisis reshape the French election? And how will the outcome of the election influence the future direction of the European Union's economy? Song Xin, a former policy advisor at the European Parliament, gave us some clues during an interview. The views expressed in the video are her own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The Ukraine crisis has reshaped the French presidential campaign during the two phases.

In the first phase, it helped President Emmanuel Macron gain more popularity, while in the second phase, this crisis made him much less popular.

If we look at the issue more precisely, there was a state emergency situation at the beginning of the war, which gave Macron more credibility as French president. French people were more united behind the government to respond to this overall challenge. So despite Macron's failure to prevent Russia from entering into the war, he became more popular than before.

Besides, during the first period, the war helped Macron disqualify his pro-Russian competitors. Macron's biggest competitor is Marine Le Pen, who was for a long time supportive of Russia. Due to the Ukraine crisis and an overwhelmingly hostile attitude toward Russia in France, Le Pen was criticized for her naive foreign strategy proposal.

The same is true for leftist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon of the France Insoumise party, who had previously claimed an anti-NATO and anti-America foreign policy. Considering all his previous remarks, he lost some potential votes due to his foreign policy proposal.

So during the first four or five weeks, Macron benefited largely from the war to sweep up his path to a second term as French president.

But now, with the war lasting for more than seven weeks, after European society has gone through a very emotional stage where it was angry with Russia, it has now entered a very difficult time where it faces real issues, such as skyrocketing inflation, energy prices, food shortage, and a higher interest rate.

According to Macron's new economic plan, there is no specific measure against all these challenges. Besides, the retirement age would be postponed until 65. That triggered again some dissatisfaction among people who supported him.

Therefore, we see right now Le Pen and Melenchon are gaining back more popularity in the polls while Macron is starting to lose his potential votes.

The risk of a Le Pen victory in France can be worrisome for French and European economies.

If Le Pen wins and becomes French president, it will cause huge damage to the political and economic structure of the EU because it is not just the threat of a lack of continuity, Le Pen represents a very different proposition. People fear that this could open up a new rift inside the EU after a show of unity recently.

What does this mean precisely? It means there would be no coherent response from the EU to tackle the economic challenge.

There are expectations now for a harmonized European response to try and blunt the economic shock due to the war in Ukraine.

If Le Pen wins, there would never be the same coordination level because her economic plan focuses mainly on boosting funds for police and prisons. She is more willing to focus on working-class people worried about the cost of living, while the rich probably might be hit with a wealth tax, so economically, it could be a disaster.

Besides, even though Le Pen is no longer talking about her plan to drop the euro, she remains skeptical of free trade and open borders. Imagine if France starts to build up borders inside the EU, it would trigger huge instability inside the region and even worldwide.

Video editor: Feng Ran

Producer: Wang Xinyan

Supervisor: Mei Yan

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