“And one, and two, and five more years!” It is 10 p.m. on Sunday April 10 in hall 6 of the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris. Macronist activists wave French and European flags. On stage, despite his 27.84% and his first place in the first round, Emmanuel Macron nevertheless refrains from any triumphalism in view of April 24. The decor is the same as five years ago, the score is better, however, the president knows that the game promises to be more difficult. “Make no mistake, nothing is settled”he warns, before insisting a few minutes later: “Let’s spare no effort in the next fortnight, nothing is done.”
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“The equation is complicated for Emmanuel Macron. He is out, had the opportunity to disappoint and Marine Le Pen is in a better position than five years ago”, summarizes the political scientist Bruno Cautrès. Compared to 2017, the RN candidate gains two points, with 23.15% of the vote. Above all, it has a larger reserve of voices. Eric Zemmour (7.05%) and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (2.06%) called on their supporters to vote for the second round finalist. That’s not all. “Mrs. Le Pen should not be given a voice”, for his part hammered Jean-Luc Mélenchon three times on Sunday evening. However, 30% of her voters say they are ready to vote for the far-right candidate, according to an Ipsos-Sopra Steria poll released after the first round.
To counter Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron and his troops respond on the ground. “We need to travel a lot more”, slipped a minister after the announcement of the results, Sunday evening. He was obviously heard. The President of the Republic was Monday in Denain (North), Carvin and Lens (Pas-de-Calais), frontist lands which are very far from being acquired. “The extremes, including the National Front, feed on fatality”launched the head of state in front of the cameras.
It’s been a good hour and a half now@EmmanuelMacron discussion with residents of Denain, which was not included in the agenda. Far from the written press, but the cameras surround him. The president wants to show, through the images, that he is in contact. @LEXPRESS pic.twitter.com/m8BJZ1sOi5
— Erwan Bruckert (@ErwanBruckert) April 11, 2022
Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron goes to the Grand Est. He will notably speak in Strasbourg, where Jean-Luc Mélenchon came out on top. Thursday, according to Politico and Le Parisien, he will go to Le Havre, a city held by its former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, where the candidate of the Popular Union also won first place.
This sequence contrasts with the campaign at least in the first round, but also with the choices made five years ago. “There is not a day to lose as we did in 2017”, thus supports a macronist. At the time, Emmanuel Macron had given the impression of forgetting this second round, celebrating with great fanfare his victory at the restaurant La Rotonde and hesitating to resume the thread of his campaign. The next day, the candidate had locked himself in his HQ, before going to a commemoration of the Armenian genocide. On the contrary, Marine Le Pen had taken up her pilgrim’s staff to plow the lands of Pas-de-Calais.
Another novelty: there is no longer any question of “demonize” Marine Le Pen. “Behind the demonization, there is a moralist dimension. However, we must show the true face of Marine Le Pen”explains a leader of the majority. “She was wrong about everything. She was pro-Putin, her party is funded by Russia. She was against the delivery of arms to Ukraine, against the messenger RNA vaccine, against vaccination…” he lists. “It will be project against project”, assures Secretary of State Sarah El Hairy. A watchword repeated at will by members of the government and executives of the majority on Sunday evening.
“It’s not the good guys versus the bad guys.”
Sarah El Hairy, Secretary of State for Youth and Engagementat franceinfo
At LREM HQ, small hands are working to take over all the positions of the far-right candidate in the past. The between-two-rounds should not be marked by an explicit call to the “republican front” which had allowed Emmanuel Macron to laminate Marine Le Pen in 2017. “As there is no longer a Republican front, I cannot pretend it exists”, even declared Emmanuel Macron on Monday in Pas-de-Calais.
An observation shared by political scientist Bruno Cautrès: “The Republican front, we see that it is an expression that has completely disappeared from the campaign, it is considered by a large part of the electorate as something that exasperates them”he delivers.
The macronie will rather get down to undoing the image of a Marine Le Pen champion of purchasing power. “The purchasing power is us”, says LREM spokesperson Maud Bregeon. “We did not wait for anyone to take measures for purchasing power”, was annoyed Stanislas Guerini Sunday evening in front of the journalists. The boss of En Marche! cites the price shield put in place by the government in the face of rising gas and electricity prices.
The stakes are high: it is a question of imposing oneself in the heart of the electorate on the left and in particular that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “There are social advances in our project, we must explain to left-wing voters that our social commitment is credible”assures the Secretary of State for Europe, Clément Beaune. “We will have to broaden our spectrum to speak to left-wing voters, we must speak to the working classes”supports the LREM deputy for Paris, Pierre Person.
“It would be relevant for Emmanuel Macron to recover measures from Jean-Luc Mélenchon. We will have to broaden the scope by giving signals to his electorate.”
Pierre Person, LREM deputy for Parisat franceinfo
Emmanuel Macron took a step in this direction on Monday, explaining that he was ready to “complete [son] project” and that he wanted “expand unambiguously”. “I keep consistency but I make sure to expand when young people send a message about ecology or others about purchasing power in a town like this”, he launched in Denain. Above all, the president said he was ready to move on his emblematic pension reform. During an interview with BFMTV, in a bistro on Place Jean Jaurès in Carvin, he said he was open to a reform that would end before 2030, the deadline announced so far to gradually raise the starting age to 65. years. It could end in 2027 and therefore be limited to a starting age of 64, he explained.
However, the conquest of the Mélenchon electorate promises to be difficult. Only 34% of voters who voted for the candidate of rebellious France say they are ready to vote Emmanuel Macron in the second round, according to an Ipsos-Sopra Steria poll released Sunday evening. A figure that does not surprise Bruno Cautrès. “It will not be easy for Emmanuel Macron to attract them. The positioning of the president is totally orthogonal to theirs.” This is what makes Clément Beaune say: “It’s not a remake of 2017. The French like to thwart the polls, you have to be vigilant. We are starting a very tough fight against Marine Le Pen.”