penultimate day of the campaign, the candidates multiply

The presidential candidates multiply on Thursday, the penultimate day of the campaign, between interventions in the media, trips and last meetings in the run-up to an election which sees the gap between the two favorites, Emmanuel Macron, narrowing every day. and Marine Le Pen.

For the 12 contenders for the Elysee Palace, two major challenges are in order before the official end of the campaign on Friday at midnight: mobilizing their supporters when abstention could flirt or exceed the 2002 record (28.4%) and go look for the many undecided, who represent a third of those sure to vote.

Sunday’s election comes in a very tense international context, with the war in Ukraine and its repercussions, which have very concrete effects on the daily life of the French with a surge in energy and food prices. An election also against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Having entered the campaign late and after having been very mobilized by the situation in Ukraine, the candidate-president, always considered the favorite with approximately 27% of the voting intentions in the 1st round and given victorious in the 2nd round by the polls, will be in the morning against the readers of the daily newspaper Today in France – Le Parisien.

On Wednesday evening, he promised to index pensions to inflation “from this summer” while reaffirming that the pension reform should be carried out “in the fall”.

“Our objective is first of all to consolidate our lead, to prevent her (Marine Le Pen) from being ahead in the first round,” a member of the presidential majority told AFP.

– “Serious things” –

“You have to realize that if she were elected, Marine le Pen (…) would have to manage a war and a major crisis. We are talking about serious things here! We will have real arguments on her program. If her economic program is put in place, hello the tax club”, insisted this official.

In his program, the outgoing president promises lower taxes and the return of full employment. But the campaign between the two rounds for a possible Macron Le Pen duel, remake of 2017 with a much tighter given score, “is going to be very violent. I do not exclude stink balls”, a-t- he adds.

For her part, the far-right candidate, who has worked hard to smooth her image even if her project remains also “radical” on the migratory and institutional level, is holding her last meeting in the largest stronghold of the RN, in Perpignan.

His former companion and vice-president of the party, Louis Aliot is the only RN mayor to lead a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants by having defeated a “republican front” organized by the outgoing mayor LR.

– Rebellious dynamics –

In full swing in the polls in recent days, around 21/22%, Marine Le Pen wants to mobilize a largely popular electorate, faced with the threat of abstention which, according to opinion polls, could be particularly important in the lower classes.

Determined to invite himself to the second round, the rebellious candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, up in voting intentions in recent days, around 16%, is also working hard.

LFI multiplies the public meetings – at least one in each department – animated by the lieutenants and figures of the campaign.

A notch below, the ecologist Yannick Jadot does not intend to be forgotten and will be traveling to Nantes where he will hold his last meeting in the evening.

LR candidate Valérie Pécresse and her far-right rival Eric Zemmour (Reconquest!), both around 8/9%, are fighting a fierce battle for a recomposition in their camp. The first will hold a public meeting in the evening in Lyon, the second a meeting in Paris.

Around or below the fateful 5% bar, which determines the reimbursement of campaign expenses, the communist Fabien Roussel will be at a meeting in Lille, the socialist Anne Hidalgo in Rouen and, for the far left, Philippe Poutou (NPA) in Toulouse.

In the Socialist Party, we are thinking more and more of the post-presidential period. “The PS has lost its attractiveness, we spent too much time taking stock of the five-year term” of François Hollande, admitted a campaign executive of Anne Hidalgo, who stagnates between 2% and 3% in the polls.

“The Epinay PS is coming to the end of its history, it was created in a very particular context”. A change of name, perhaps, but it must be, according to him, “the culmination of a political approach”.

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