President Emmanuel Macron formalized his candidacy for a second term on Thursday March 3 in a “Letter to the French” published on the sites of regional press daily newspapers.
He waited until the last moment. Mobilized by the health crisis and then by the war in Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron finally formalized his candidacy for the presidential election next April in a letter posted on Thursday. And this while the contenders for the supreme magistracy have until Friday 6 p.m. to formalize it with the Constitutional Council. With 38 days to go before the first round of the ballot, the head of state can thus kick off a largely disrupted electoral campaign, one of the shortest ever carried out by an outgoing president.
” I am a candidate to invent with you, in the face of the challenges of the century, a unique French and European response. I am a candidate to defend our values that the disruptions of the world threaten. I am a candidate to continue to prepare the future of our children and our grandchildren. To allow us today and tomorrow to decide for ourselves “, he writes.
In this three-page text, the outgoing president gives some ideas on the main lines and values associated with his project. ” We will have to work harder and continue to lower taxes on labor and production “, he announces thus, promising to fight against inequalities by attacking them “ at the root “, or even of” make retirement homes more humane ” whereas the living conditions in nursing homes have recently been the subject of a lively controversy.
This announcement was not a surprise. Emmanuel Macron himself has alluded to it several times and his entire campaign team made no secret that everything was ready. Behind the scenes, the macronie has been organizing for weeks, between fundraising to finance the campaign, leaflets, door-to-door, creation of support committees and forums in the press of elected officials for a second term. Due to the war which has taken over his agenda and dominates all subjects in the media, he has canceled – or postponed – a first meeting which was scheduled for Marseille this weekend.
Leading in the polls
Emmanuel Macron declares himself later than two of his predecessors candidates for a second term. Jacques Chirac in 2002 and Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012 had in fact both declared themselves two months before the election. Only François Mitterrand in 1988 and Charles de Gaulle in 1965 had waited even longer, almost a month before the first round. This expectation was strongly denounced by the outgoing president’s rivals.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, he himself admitted on Wednesday evening in a speech on this crisis“ comes to strike our democratic life and the electoral campaign “. This war also has an impact on the polls, which show that it favors the outgoing, as is often the case in times of crisis. Thus, since the start of the invasion eight days ago, the Head of State has gained several points in the voting intentions. The latest polls give him 27-28%, or ten points ahead of his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen (RN), who is widening the gap with Valérie Pécresse (LR) and Eric Zemmour (Reconquest!) .
Before the start of this crisis, the Elysée tenant was already high in voting intentions, well ahead of his opponents, also reaping the benefits of his management of the Covid-19 health crisis and his “whatever” policy. ‘it costs’”, generally hailed by the French.
Impatient opponents
At 44, the man who had become the youngest president of the Fifth Republic in 2017 is returning to the campaign with the experience of a first term shaken by the crises, in particular those of the Yellow Vests and the Covid-19, and now by the war in Ukraine. However, it is difficult to imagine what this campaign will look like. A member of the La République en Marche party explains that Emmanuel Macron ” will be president-candidate rather than candidate-president », Reports Anthony Latier, journalist in the political department of RFI. Understand: the tenant of the Élysée will campaign when he can. But most of the time, he will keep his hat as head of state and head of the armies.
His opponents, who had been boxing among themselves for months, were eagerly awaiting his candidacy. Eric Zemmour did not wait for its officialization to broadcast this Thursday afternoon a video in which he addresses him directly, claiming to be the spokesperson for the French. Like the Reconquest candidate!, Emmanuel Macron’s opponents will therefore seek to play face-to-face. But everyone fears that the outgoing president will not descend into the arena, and fear a stolen campaign, totally overshadowed by the conflict in Ukraine and which does not allow the head of state to be confronted with his record.
If he wins on the evening of the second round, on April 24, Emmanuel Macron will have made a bet never made in the history of the Fifth Republic: to be re-elected by direct universal suffrage without leaving a period of cohabitation, like the had made François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. But his position as favorite remains fragile. As evidenced by recent polls which show him winning in the second round against all his opponents, including the best placed Marine Le Pen, but with a smaller lead than in 2017.
(And with AFP)