France

Presidential election : The blues of the Macronists

- 10:00 pm
Emmanuel Macron in front of the European Parliament (capture)

Emmanuel Macron in front of the European Parliament (capture)

What if Macron wasn’t in the second round? The question may seem absurd in view of the flattering polls for the president-candidate. However, an election is not simply a matter of arithmetic. It’s a very subtle alchemy that algorithms can’t capture.

Decidedly, this electoral campaign for the race to the Élysée Palace is unlike any other. It could hold big surprises on the evenings of April 10 and 24, 2022. Indeed, the election is far from being folded, as we would like to believe because, in this atypical campaign, everything will be played in the two weeks that separate us from the first round.

No debate in the first round

Here is an outgoing president assured by all the polls of his re-election: between 28 and 30% in the first round according to the pollsters, between 54 and 56% in the second round according to the challenger. Thanks to which the president-candidate, who also assumes since January 1, 2022, the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, is more concerned with his image and his future in Europe and in the world than with the fate of the French. At least that is the impression he gives.
Too caught up in his role as mediator in the Ukrainian conflict, Macron talks regularly to Putin but not to the French. He refused any debate with the other candidates before the first round. Perhaps so as not to have to defend an unflattering record ?

What about the “reserve period” for ministers ?

Emmanuel Macron sends his ministers to do the job in front of the TV cameras. Even the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, went to defend the candidate’s program on TF1 in defiance of the “reserve period” that has been imposed since March 18, 2022 on all civil servants, but also on ministers. It corresponds to a practice during which members of the government must not use the means of the State while the electoral campaign is taking place.
Other ministers play an ambiguous role, such as Gabriel Attal, who is both government spokesman and spokesman for candidate Macron when it comes to the outgoing president’s record as well as the program of the president-candidate. An unhealthy mix of genres.

The McKinsey scandal

As for Emmanuel Macron’s “presidential project for France”, it stumbles on two points: the extension of the legal retirement age to 65 and the conditionality of the Revenu de Solidarité Active (RSA) to an activity of 15 to 20 hours per week. Two measures that have difficulty in passing. Like the increase in the price of fuel and basic necessities.
Because at a time when Macron wants to tighten the screws on the French, we learn, thanks to the senators, that influence firms interfere in the management of the state.
Private firms, often foreign like McKinsey, get “a lot of money” to do the work of our civil servants. We remember the conflict of interest that could exist between Laurent Fabius, president of the Constitutional Council, asked to give his opinion on August 5, 2021 on the extension of the health pass and his son, Victor Fabius, associate director of McKinsey.
With this particularity revealed by the Senate that McKinsey does not pay taxes in France !

A campaign for CSP+ people

These are undoubtedly the main reasons why the Macronists are beginning to doubt an easy victory. La République en Marche activists believe that candidate Macron’s campaign is aimed at the CSP+ (upper management and intellectual professions) rather than the people, as do, for example, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Fabien Roussel.
And this feeling that Macron is the candidate of the rich as he was the president of the rich is tenacious in the opinion.
In any case, the Macronists are boasting less and less as the April 10 vote approaches. They fear a high abstention rate that would be fatal to their herald. For in politics, anything can happen.

A contest meeting at the Arena

Therefore, the only meeting of the candidate, on April 2, 2022 at the Defense Arena in Paris, is crucial. It will take place in a hall with 30,000 seats, the largest in Europe. It would be unfortunate if the hall was not filled. To avoid empty chairs, the party of President-candidate Macron, LREM has found a marketing trick: organize a contest with prizes for the activists who will manage to convince the largest number of participants, as reported by The Huffington Post.
And the best ones will be rewarded, like a national lottery. The first will be entitled to “a unique and privileged moment” after the meeting. No doubt an aside with the presidential candidate. The least valiant will only be entitled to a meeting with a minister, an aperitif or a €30 discount at the party store.
The rules do not say whether they will also be allowed to slap the president and ministers. Too bad, there would have been a lot of people !

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