Voters in France will begin choosing a new president on April 18, in the first round of an election to replace Emmanuel Macron.

The date was announced on Wednesday, alongside a May 2 runoff between the top two candidates from the first round.

The election promises to be the biggest test so far of the rise of the anti-immigration far-right in Europe, which is led in France by Marine Le Pen and her National Rally, or RN, party. Macron will not stand because he has already served two five-year terms and must step down before May 13.

Early opinion polls suggest RN will win the first round, even though the party has not yet picked its candidate.

Le Pen, who leads RN in Parliament, will almost certainly stand, if she is acquitted at a July 7 appeals court hearing into her five-year ban on running for public office, which followed her conviction for a fake jobs scam in the European Parliament.

Le Pen has already run for president three times — finishing third in 2012 and second to Macron in the following two presidential elections.

After the far-right's recent rise in popularity in response to mass, unregulated, illegal migration, many observers think she will win if she is allowed to stand.

In her absence, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, president of RN and Le Pen's protege, will likely stand.

Macron's center-right Renaissance party narrowly held onto power after the last general election, but without a sufficient majority in Parliament to effectively run the country. The nation would lurch noticeably to the right if RN were able to win the presidential election.

Several other candidates have also announced they will stand, including Macron's former prime ministers Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal, and far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Macron's party is currently polling at around 31-36 percent of the popular vote.

France 24 quoted Thibault Muzergues, political director at Shared Ground, as saying Bardella has managed to shift focus away from RN being a far-right party.

"Bardella is positioning RN policy much more around the left versus the right," Muzergues said.

Victor Mallet, a senior editor at the Financial Times, told France 24 that Melenchon could make it to the second round of voting and set up a straight fight between left and right. But that it would likely trigger an RN victory.

Contact the writers at earle@mail.chinadailyuk.com