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Polls indicate that any of the four primary presidential candidates could emerge victorious: the traditional right’s François Fillon, the new centrist Emmanuel Macron, the far right’s Marine Le Pen, and the far left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Importantly, the latter two support policies far outside the traditional French and European consensus, which French foreign policy has been based on for decades. Their extreme positions may lead to the end of French membership in both the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and consequently unravel the postwar effort to bind the European continent. Twenty-six years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the demise of this European project would be a superb victory for the Kremlin. Incidentally, on March 24, President Vladimir Putin officially welcomed Marine Le Pen to Moscow.

The Fifth Republic, established by General Charles de Gaulle in 1958, created an institutional framework that gives the French president a pivotal role in developing and conducting foreign policy.

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