This year’s French election campaign is a strangely muted affair. The incumbent, president Emmanuel Macron, has still neglected to declare that he is a candidate, even as he directs the entire weight of the French state towards his re-election. The geometry is highly variable. Pollsters admit privately that they’re struggling to measure abstentionism, or how to weigh up the insurgency of Eric Zemmour, since they’re unable to calibrate their data against any previous election performance by him.