In his article in the Washington Post, James McCauley referred to 4 alarming observations of the results of the first round of the French presidential elections, and said that they showed that the current President Emmanuel Macron's performance was better than initially expected, but not as it should.

Most of all, she is showing an extreme right at the gates of power, with a real chance of winning the final round in two weeks.

The writer hinted that the next two weeks may not be enough time for Macron to block the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, and indicated that the broad outlines of the results of next Sunday are as follows:

First, Macron is likely to lose the election. The French president, whose lead in opinion polls waned rapidly in the run-up to the first round of voting, did slightly better than expected, coming in at 28%, some 5 points ahead of Le Pen, 23%. .

But the main question, says the writer, is whether, during the next two weeks, Macron can persuade the disengaged political left to stand with him against Le Pen, as he did in 2017. The writer doubted that he could do so in 2022 because of the war in Ukraine.

He believed that the scant time left in the campaign may not be enough for Macron to convince left-wing voters that he heard their concerns.

Although the socialists have lost their former status, there is still a lot of energy in the left, and it seems that it is only looking for a leader, and at the moment the leader appears to be Melenchon

Second, the traditional parties have disappeared and extremism is on the rise.

The French political landscape has changed radically, with more than 50% of voters in the first round supporting extremist parties from the far right or far left.

Third, the far right has never been stronger.

Le Pen, in her third career at the Elysee Palace, has fared better than before and is likely to outperform her last result in the replay of 2017.

Fourth, the French left is not dead, but it is disjointed, and what seemed important in the recent results is the success of the extreme leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose performance came by 22%, and almost surpassed Le Pen.

The writer pointed out that Melenchon lost to Le Pen by only 422,000 votes, and that if the voters - who supported Anne Hidalgo, a member of the Socialist Party - for example, had gone to Melenchon (about 617,000);

The far right would not have had a presence in the last round of voting.

The writer concluded his article that although the socialists have lost their formerly high position, there is still great energy in the left, and it seems that it is only looking for a leader, and at the moment the leader appears to be Melenchon.