Emmanuel Macron has announced he is standing for re-election, in a letter published in a number of local newspapers in France. The president, like all potential candidates, had until 6pm local time to announce he would run in the April election and to present the country’s constitutional court with 500 signatures from MPs and other elected officials supporting his bid. “I am seeking your trust again. I am a candidate to invent with you, faced with the century’s challenges, a French and European singular response,” he said. Macron acknowledged that the election would not be a normal one owing to Russia’s war on Ukraine. “Of course, I will not be able to campaign as I would have liked because of the context,” he said, while vowing to “explain our project with clarity and commitment”. Élysée sources told French media that Macron, who addressed the nation on Wednesday on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, what it meant for the EU and the probable consequences, had wanted to avoid making a verbal declaration that might be seen as out of place in the international context of the war. A letter would be seen as sufficiently “solemn and sober”, a source told broadcaster France Info. It also allowed him to explain why he was running for re-election through the regional press. While Macron’s handling of the Ukraine conflict and his telephone diplomacy with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has given him a boost in the polls, the timing of his re-election statement became time-sensitive. It was originally to be made around the opening of the prestigious Salon de l’Agriculture trade fair on 26 February, and a first campaign meeting was planned for Marseille this Saturday. Both were cancelled. Presidential advisers, who have been busy briefing journalists on the situation in Ukraine, and France’s diplomatic efforts to stop Russia’s attempt to take over the country, refused to make any comment on the presidential election timetable. Since he appeared from nowhere to win the presidential election in 2017, Macron’s five-year term at the Élysée Palace and political programme have been derailed first by the Covid-19 pandemic and now by Russia’s war on Ukraine. A recent poll suggested Macron was well ahead in the presidential race, with 28% of intentions to vote, compared with the far-right Rassemblement National’s Marine Le Pen in second place on 17%. The mainstream rightwing candidate Valérie Pécresse and hard-right candidate Éric Zemmour are close behind Le Pen. A Macron-Le Pen second-round run-off in April would be a repeat of the 2017 presidential election.