During a short televised address, the outgoing president called for "not to give in to our principles of freedom, sovereignty and democracy", warning the French that this "act of war" will have "deep, lasting consequences on our lives and the geopolitics of our continent".

He also promised that France and its allies will decide on sanctions against Russia "at the height of the aggression of which it is guilty".

Mr. Macron must also send a message to Parliament during a solemn session on Friday.

Including in the camp of those who spared Putin's Russia the most, such as the leader of rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon or the far-right candidates Eric Zemmour (Reconquest!) and Marine Le Pen (National Rally) .

"Presidential"

At 46 days from the first round, it is still too early to judge the impact of the event on the French and the presidential election, but it completely upsets the campaign.

If foreign policy issues generally weigh little on a presidential election, the fact that war is on the doorstep of the European Union and that it impacts Macron's entry into the scene, could change the situation and favor the outgoing president, analysts say.

Mr. Macron finds himself caught in the middle, he who has gone to the front line to try to resolve, without success, the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, which has earned him criticism from the opposition.

He is the big favorite in the polls of voting intentions but he sees his re-election campaign go from postponement to postponement.

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks by videoconference with G7 leaders on the events in Ukraine at the Elysee Palace in Paris, February 24, 2022 Ludovic MARIN POOL / AFP

More broadly, these events "prevent(s) the campaign from progressing", underlines PollingVox pollster Jérôme Sainte-Marie, for whom "it will further weaken the real issues of the campaign, in particular the social issues which are inaudible".

"It's unheard of" to have a war in campaign time, notes for his part Frédéric Dabi, director general opinion at Ifop.

"But it remains very difficult to predict. What we can perhaps anticipate is a logic of distinction between the president and the other candidates" according to who is the most "presidentiable".

On the defensive

Expected in the evening at the traditional dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif) - one of the imposed campaign figures - the Head of State had to cancel his visit to go to an extraordinary European Council in Brussels.

For their part, several candidates like Yannick Jadot or Christiane Taubira have postponed or canceled trips planned for Thursday to participate in pro-Ukraine demonstrations.

And France 2 has deprogrammed a debate in the evening with Marine Le Pen.

French presidential candidate Christiane Taubira (c) takes part in a demonstration of Ukrainians outside the Russian Embassy in Paris, February 24, 2022 Thomas COEX AFP

For their part, three of the main candidates for the election, Ms. Le Pen and MM.

Zemmour and Mélenchon, appear on the defensive even if they promptly condemned the Russian invasion.

They have been criticized for having, to varying degrees, associated themselves with Russian claims against the expansion of NATO, without condoning the actions of the Russian president.

For political scientist Pascal Perrineau, who recalls that "these are candidates who have more or less sought the support of (Vladimir) Poutine", "Mélenchon, Zemmour and Le Pen anticipate that they could eventually pay the electoral cost of certain imprudences ".

The leader of LFI, who arrived on Reunion Island on Thursday morning, called for refusing this "unbearable escalation" and "for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Ukraine".

In response to Mr. Macron's calls for unity, however, he said that if the president "is sincere, he must give himself the means" by "asking his friends from En Marche to exercise restraint in the face of opposition ".

Eric Zemmour, who "unreservedly" condemned Moscow, argued that "like others, including the Ukrainians themselves, I believed that Vladimir Putin would not cross that red line, because a peaceful solution could be obtained".

Mr. Zemmour had said on several occasions that he did not believe in a Russian invasion.

The candidate Reconquest!

French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour at the Medef premises in Paris, February 21, 2022 Eric PIERMONT AFP / Archives

Finally, Marine Le Pen called for "the immediate cessation of Russian operations", an invasion which upsets "the balance of peace in Europe" and "must be condemned without ambiguity".

Ms. Le Pen had been received by Vladimir Putin during the 2017 presidential campaign.

© 2022 AFP