[9] The Union of Democrats and Independents was represented by Louis Giscard d'Estaing who lived in Chamalières, France.

[10] The Rally of French Citizens Abroad (Rassemblement des Français de l’étranger) was represented by Damien Regnard who lived in New Orleans.

[19] Lagarde, however, subsequently became Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, and in November the party chose Frédéric Lefebvre, secretary of state for commerce, to replace her as candidate.

[25] The Left Front, which includes the French Communist Party, chose Céline Clément, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Strasbourg.

Her deputy (suppléant) was Thomas Collombat, a professor of Quebec Studies at Western Washington University.

[18] The centre-right Radical Party and the centrist Republican, Ecologist and Social Alliance jointly chose Philippe Manteau as their candidate.

[18] The centre-left Radical Party of the Left chose Stéphanie Bowring, a long-term resident of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, and a dual citizen of France and Canada.

[18] Solidarity and Progress, the French branch of the LaRouche movement, was represented by Karel Vereycken, with Dominique Revault-D'Allonnes as his deputy.

[29] Julien Balkany, a resident of New York City and a member of the Union for a Popular Movement, stood as a dissident candidate, having failed to obtain the party's endorsement.

[30] Gérard Michon, a resident of the United States for 31 years who was serving his fourth mandate at the Assembly of French Citizens Abroad, for the constituency including San Francisco, stood as an independent candidate.

[31][32] Antoine Treuille, a businessman, president of the French-American Foundation, and long-term resident of the United States, stood as an independent right-wing candidate.

[18] Due in part to the sheer size of the constituency, certain candidates barely campaigned at all, while others "made every effort to travel around" the United States and Canada and "mobilise their scattered voters".

Among issues of concern to voters were education (access to French schools for their children) and retirement pensions.

Commentators in Libération pointed to Narassiguin's strong and active campaign, and suggested that rightwing voters had rejected UMP candidate Frédéric Lefebvre, who spoke little English and was perceived as knowing little about North America.

[41] In February 2013, the election of Corinne Narassiguin was annulled by the Constitutional Council, due to irregularities in the funding of her electoral campaigns.

Defeated candidates Antoine Treuille and Emile Servan-Schreiber were also barred from standing for public office for a year, for the same reason.

Le Monde wrote that there would probably be a "de facto compromise", whereby Canada would tacitly recognise the diplomatic inviolability of French consulates where the voting would take place.