In front of more than 30 thousand people, in the La Défense arena, on the western outskirts of Paris, Emmanuel Macron turns to his hard core, appealing to mobilize against the risk of extremism. “I ask all those who today, from Social Democracy to Gaullism passing through ecologists, have not yet joined us, to do so, because since the beginning of this adventure we have only one party, it is our country”.
The rally, the first and last of the president’s electoral campaign, closes a somewhat complicated week for the leader of La République en Marche !, who still remains firmly in the lead in all polls, estimated at between 28% and 30% at first round.
Macron postponed the announcement of his candidacy for months, adapting on the one hand to the recurrent practice of the outgoing Heads of State (François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy announced their reappointment a few weeks after the vote), on the other hand to the relative position comfortable as president-in-office.
Showing the electorate to take care of the country instead of dealing with the physiological controversies of an electoral campaign, seemed a winning strategy, as also demonstrated by opinion polls, extremely solid and constant throughout 2021 and the first months of 2022.
The electoral strategy was somewhat overtaken by reality: the explosion of the Omicron variant in January and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, effectively made it very difficult for Macron to leave current affairs to devote himself to the presidential election. .
Thus, the president left the field free to his opponents, who were able to benefit from greater attention to their programs: more than a month after the beginning of the Russian invasion, the French are now used to the news coming from Ukraine, and they have begun to devote more attention to the upcoming vote. While his opponents organized rallies, public gatherings, walks in local markets and interviews, Macron did the bare minimum: his candidacy was announced on March 3, but the first real event was held almost a week later. March 7, in Poissy, in the province of Paris.
Then, the president made the president, and in the following ten days he devoted only two afternoons to the electoral campaign: on March 17 he organized a long press conference to present his program and on March 18 he flew to Pau, a small city on the Pyrenees, for its second electoral event.
It appeared that Macron had indeed entered the campaign, and instead let another 10 days pass before organizing a new election, in Dijon, on March 28, which was followed by a brief visit of about three hours to Fouras, in New Aquitaine. on March 31. Finally, on April 2 he held his first and only major rally, at La Défense, in Paris.
In total, without counting the television interviews, the president-candidate organized only 6 electoral events in a month, a much lower rate than that of his opponents, who from March 28 can also count on the rule that limits the media exposure of the twelve. pretenders to the Elysée.
In fact, two weeks after the first round, the law requires each candidate to have the same speaking time (direct or indirect), on television and radio. This rule does not apply only to interviews, but also to statements made during services on radio and TV programs.
Thus, the time that the criticisms of the various challengers find, physiologically concentrated on the incumbent president, is much longer than that which Macron can enjoy. This limitation is becoming a problem due to the accusations that a part of the press and the political class are making against the government.
On March 17, the French Senate published the results of its investigation into the relationship between public administrations and private consulting firms, revealing that the contracts won by these groups “more than doubled” between 2018 and 2021. According to the Senate, in three years the ministries have resorted to about 2 thousand companies for a total expenditure of 893.9 million euros, even if 55% of the contracts were won by a small group of 20 companies.
In particular, the American McKinsey, one of the most famous companies in the sector in the world, has attracted the attention of public opinion, which obtained many contracts during the health crisis (according to the Monde about 40, for a value including between 28 and 50 million euros) and is accused by the senators of not paying taxes in France.
In addition, some of his employees have quite close ties to President Macron: Karim Tadjeddine, McKinsey France’s public sector head, was a major contributor to the president’s program in 2017, while other McKinsey employees were involved in the 2017 campaign. they obtained positions of responsibility in the following years, such as Mathieu Maucort, who became the chief of staff of the secretary of state for digital Mounir Mahjoubi, or Ariane Komorn, head of the division engagement of En Marche !, Macron’s party, until 2021. Paul Midy, general delegate of En Marche!, worked at McKinsey from 2007 to 2014.
The president defended himself by clarifying that this type of advice “has nothing illegal about it”, and invited those who believe the opposite to “turn to criminal justice”.
It is in all probability true, but the opposition has found an excellent argument to attack the government and therefore the political budget of Emmanuel Macron, accused for years of having governed using the methods of large private companies. During the last week, the president has returned to the subject several times, and on Wednesday evening the Ministry of Economy has called a press conference to try to clarify the matter and put out the fire: the problem is that, due to the rule on the egalitarian speaking time among all candidates, the attacks multiplied, making theaffaire more relevant than it probably would have been at other times.
This week, Macron has tried to set up his electoral campaign by recreating the bipolarity between himself and the far right, represented by Éric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen, now rivals but basically allies: once they get to the ballot, their race “It will end in tandem.”
In particular, the president has attacked Marine Le Pen several times, designated by him as the most accredited challenger. The polls, at this moment, give Macron right, because the candidate of the Rassemblement national would collect more than 20% of the votes in the first round, and would be able to be very competitive in the ballot, losing only by 5 points against the president (47.5 % to 52.5% according to an Ifop poll released this week).
It is a strategy that the Head of State has been pursuing for years, and which confronts the country with the choice between the field of reasonableness and that of extremism, but it is generally used in the ballot, when it is also addressed to voters who do not they will go to vote out of conviction, as well as to “eliminate” the less welcome candidate. The fact that Macron immediately decided to use it shows that the last days of the election campaign will be much less easy than expected.
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