A new opinion poll shows support for Emmanuel Macron at its highest level yet in round one of France's April presidential election. The reason for this boost might also explain why the incumbent president has not yet declared his candidacy: his role in the Ukraine crisis. In this special edition of France 2022: The Campaign, we examine how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has completely upended the French presidential campaign.

"We are not at war with the Russian people; we don't want the Russian people to suffer." So says the head of the European Parliament's Security and Defence subcommittee Nathalie Loiseau, as the EU looks poised to impose fresh sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "It seems that Vladimir Putin is also at war with his own people," the top French MEP told FRANCE 24.

South Korea's presidential candidates formally began campaigning on Tuesday. It's set to be the tightest race in 20 years between the two main parties. The two leading candidates have been dogged by scandals and are plagued with high disapproval ratings.

The war in Ukraine may be keeping Emmanuel Macron off the campaign trail, but the benefit to the French president has been clear: for the first time, a poll over the weekend saw him getting more than 30 percent of votes in the first round. The conflict has given Macron an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership. Meanwhile, candidates from far-right Marine Le Pen to far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon have been stuck defending their past sympathies for Vladimir Putin and their calls to withdraw France from NATO. Andrew Smith, a senior lecturer in contemporary history and politics at the University of Chichester, tells us "it’s going to be a strange campaign".

French presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour are holding duelling rallies on February 5, 2022. FRANCE 24's Clovis Casali reports.

Republican universalism is one of the founding principles of the French Republic. Put simply, it's the notion that the collective transcends individual differences like ethnicity or religion. But many see that definition as increasingly exclusionary, even arguing that the concept contributes to the very societal ills it's supposed to prevent. Mame-Fatou Niang, Associate Professor of Francophone Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, has co-authored an essay on the topic. She joined us for Perspective.

With the presidential election just around the corner, everyone is focused on the campaign. Today, FRANCE 24's Florence Villeminot take a closer look at the top prize: the presidency. There’s a reason everyone wants to be France's president: the role has a lot of power compared to the leaders of most other modern democracies, such as the US, Germany and the UK. In fact, critics say the French president is a kind of temporary modern-day monarch in the style of the ancient regimes.

South Koreans went to the polls on Wednesday March 9 to elect a new president. Perhaps unsurprisingly for one of the most connected countries in the world, candidates for the top job used technology in a bid to connect with as many voters as possible, especially younger ones. Our correspondents report on the digital tools that have shaped the election campaign, from AI-generated clones of candidates to metaverse virtual reality platforms.

South Korea's opposition conservatives have won the presidency after one of the most bitterly contested campaigns in recent history. Conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol took the vote by slightly less than 1%.

We're less than one month away from the first round of a very unusual presidential election, shadowed by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. FRANCE 24 takes a look at one of voters' top priorities: the cost of living. We also report from the latest climate protests, where French citizens have called for more attention to the environmental crisis.

When fiction is portrayed as fact: a French film is hijacked to stir anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Chechnya. In this edition of Truth or Fake, we also debunk yet more claims that President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife have fled the country.

With less than four weeks to go ahead of the first round of voting in the French presidential election, we check in on the campaign with contemporary history and politics lecturer Andrew Smith. He explains that Emmanuel Macron's choice not to participate in a debate ahead of the first round is right in line with his strategy to stay above the fray. Meanwhile, right-wing candidate Valérie Pécresse and far-right Eric Zemmour face off in a televised debate hoping to revive their flagging campaigns.