Emmanuel Macron never ceases to intrigue. Six years after his entry into the Elysée, friends and enemies are struggling to define the ideological software of this curious president. His ode to “at the same time” marks his finesse for the former. It betrays its intellectual emptiness for the latter. But there is one trait that no one disputes. The head of state is a convinced European. Macronism is a doctrine in perpetual mutation, except on this point. Even the boss of LR deputies Olivier Marleix – an indestructible anti-macronist who does not spare him any conviction – is willing to admit it. The French also understood this. The president’s electorate, rather elderly and educated, is most attached to the legacy of Jean Monnet.
So, there’s no question of playing around. Six months before the European elections, Emmanuel Macron claims a monopoly on this commitment and tries to set up a duel with the National Rally (RN), his best enemy. During his wishes, the Head of State summarized the alternative of June 9: “Continue Europe or block it.” “We will be the only pro-European ballot on the table!” launched Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne in October at the Renaissance campus in Bordeaux.
Renaissance-RN. This confrontation is adorned with noble ideological virtues, as these camps are at polar opposites. In 2019, it had above all allowed Macronie to mobilize its camp, to make its opponents invisible and to flirt with first place. Five years later, she is ready for a new tango. With the more modest objective of limiting the damage against Jordan Bardella, who is leading the campaign with the wind at his back. “If the RN gives us 10 points, the five-year term is over,” says a Renaissance executive.
“We do not always have to follow European doxa”
This appropriation of the European ideal is crude in form. It is intended to be subtle in substance, as the EU is contested. “Above ground”, “powerless”…, these accusations echo those made against Macronism, a technocratic machine for its detractors. Beware of yet another disconnection trial. The naive praise of the Union is the fuel of the RN. “If we want to achieve 10%, we sing the praises of the European Union as it is,” Bruno Le Maire summed up a few months ago in a small committee. “We must not always follow the European doctrine.” The executive therefore seeks to position itself as the herald of a Europe on the move, freed from its dogmas and its budgetary orthodoxy. To its credit, the common loan during the post-Covid recovery plan or the pact on migration and asylum. Emmanuel Macron finally praises “European sovereignty”: the concept dresses faith in the EU with reassuring rhetoric for the French struck by a feeling of dispossession.
Embody the useful European vote. The recipe is known, but aren’t the ingredients expired? “Trying to structure the 2024 election like that of 2019 will be more difficult,” notes Brice Teinturier, Deputy Managing Director of Ipsos France. “One election is never like another.” The head of state, structurally weakened by his final mandate, is struggling to act under a relative majority. It especially faces competition on its pro-European line. Socialist Party candidate Raphaël Glucksmann has long claimed this commitment, going against the Eurosceptic overtones of La France insoumise. LFI mocks his supposed softness? His moderation is a danger for the presidential camp.
“Glucksmann is a subject for us”
The man can seduce part of Emmanuel Macron’s historic electorate, disconcerted by his right-wing change. The immigration law has been there. “Glucksmann is going to be the Yannick Jadot of 2024, worries a member of the government. If some of our voters find that he is as pro-Europe as we are, they could well go to him.” A minister from the left wing, who fears a “communicating vessel effect” between the intellectual and Renaissance, is pushing his pawns. Glucksmann? “One more reason not to undress the left flank of our political camp.”
A deputy close to the head of state concludes: “How do we manage to avoid losing the social democratic battalions in the European elections?” Well, by talking to them! Emmanuel Macron follows in the footsteps of socialist Jacques Delors, who died on December 27. The head of state praises the “legacy” of the former president of the European Commission during his vows. During a national tribute ceremony on January 5, he salutes the man who “truly reconciled France with Europe”, “Europe with its future”, and who brought to the fore “the possibility of a social -democracy of emancipation”. A praise tinged with recovery, as it resembles a self-portrait.
This is pro-European social democracy on trend again. Politics is about cycles. The former First Secretary of the PS Jean-Christophe Cambadélis is amused by the breakthrough of the philosopher, credited with 10% of voting intentions. “Glucksmann is not the result of a supply, but of a demand: that of those disappointed with Macronism and disappointed with Melenchonism.” Jean-Luc Mélenchon embodied the useful left-wing vote in 2022. Can the founder of Place publique steal this status in the spring, by being the receptacle of a moderate and pro-European left scattered to the four winds? Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s praetorian guard mocks this media “Glucksmania”, but is worried about it. This is evidenced by the methodical charge carried out on social networks against the candidate by a multitude of anonymous pro-LFI accounts. We portray ad nauseam “a right-wing candidate”, “liberal” if not “ultraliberal” or “Atlanticist”. Its unconditional support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invader would only be the false nose of submission to American interests.
LFI’s fears
A unilateral war, since the PS was instructed to Glucksmann – not stingy in criticizing the LFI – not to campaign in opposition to Mélenchon alone. Pilfering LFI’s Europhile electorate, yes, but tactfully. This is not the only coquetry in the story. As Raphaël Glucksmann leads the left-wing candidates, the rumor of a candidacy from Jean-Luc Mélenchon grows stronger. Mélenchon as candidate is the assurance of a polarized campaign between him and Jordan Bardella, and deflowered from the rest of the left, Glucksmann or not. His rebels swear that the rumor is crazy, but Mélenchon is a man of circumstances.
This is the European monopoly of Macronie contested by the left. On the right, it’s less certain. Neither Eurobeats nor Eurosceptics: The Republicans (LR) claim a pragmatic commitment to find oxygen. Likely head of the LR list, François-Xavier Bellamy sums up: “We must never get into the question ‘Are we for or against Europe?’. If the equation is that, we have lost. Who is for ? Macron. Against? Le Pen.” The right insists on the defense of French interests in Europe and a strengthening of the EU in the world. “We must defend it against Gafa, China and the United States,” confides LR MEP Geoffroy Didier. If it does not hold its place in the world, France will drop out indirectly. Right-wing voters disappointed by Macron can hear this message.”
The debates on immigration, however, have awakened a sovereignist discourse on the right. In December, LR deputies defended a proposed constitutional law allowing a derogation from European law in the name of the “fundamental interests of the nation”. This initiative is limited to the subject of migration and is part of a broader cultural battle against the “government of judges”. But it cuts into the supranational dimension of the EU and confuses LR’s European message. On the right, we are finally wondering about the capacity of François-Xavier Bellamy, elected with a conservative profile, to conquer the Europhile electorate. “These people are for progress and are not backward-looking. They will not follow it on a societal level,” worries an elected LR official. In politics, the messenger matters as much as the message.