The hour is serious and the outcome of the ballot uncertain, so there was urgency. Especially since the head of state will not return until Friday from his trip to Romania and Moldova. And that his majority wanted him to get more involved than he had done so far.
Emmanuel Macron took care of the staging: a solemn address decided in an emergency, and delivered on the tarmac, at the foot of the presidential plane with the French Republic logo. The evocation of “the higher interest of the Nation” and a call that “Sunday, no voice is missing from the Republic”. A way for the Head of State to assume the monopoly of the Republican camp in the face of dual competition from Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen.
It’s a classic. And for the Gaullist side, his flight abroad yesterday was somewhat reminiscent of the General’s hasty departure for Baden-Baden. Except that at the time, De Gaulle was fleeing “the shit” of May 68. This time, the “melenchonist dog bed”, if I dare say, is not there yet. And then the General had gone on the sly. For long hours, no one knew where he was. Emmanuel Macron, we know where he is, and he will be back in two days.
The Head of State also highlighted the risk of “blocking” in the event of cohabitation and he urged voters not to add a “French crisis” to the “international crisis”. This too is a great classic. In the past, all presidents have been involved in the legislative campaign, sometimes even by holding large meetings. It was Valéry Giscard d’Estaing who inaugurated the practice, in 1978, with a speech delivered in Verdun-sur-le-Doubs, which has remained famous as the speech “good choice, and common sense”. And it had worked since the left, at the time favorite, had finally lost.
The risk is to give a feeling of panic. Especially when we have tried so far to anesthetize the campaign as Emmanuel Macron has done. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has also castigated his trip to Romania to the French forces engaged in NATO in the face of the threat from Vladimir Poutine. He called it a “mark of contempt for the second round of legislative elections”adding that “for three days, there is no longer a pilot on the plane”. However, he remains the Prime Minister and it is moreover this position that Jean-Luc Mélenchon hopes to occupy soon to prove that he is the pilot!