anger of the French, serial selfies and electoral flirting… We tell you about the campaign between the two rounds

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Fifteen days to convince the French. Since the first round, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron have pounded the pavement to meet voters, chained meetings and scoured radio and television sets. A few hours before the end of the official campaign, Friday April 22 at midnight, franceinfo rewinds the film of this battle between the two towers.

>> Follow in our live the last day of campaign before the second round of the presidential election

Monday 11. No observation time. After his qualification, Emmanuel Macron does not blow the champagne at La Rotonde as in 2017, but quickly turns to the field. The President goes to the North. In Denain, where he came in third position, with only 14.74% of the vote, the candidate is confronted with the anger of part of the French and is criticized for having wanted “fuck the unvaccinated”remarks made several months ago.

“He finally left for the campaign. In the first round, it was a little too fast, not local enough. It was essential to be within reach of slaps”confides a minister to franceinfo. “He took risks, by going to have fights. And people like this castagne side in him”confirms another member of the government.

Opposite, Marine Le Pen does not sit idly by and improvises a trip to Soucy, in Yonne, a land where she came out ahead in the first round (36.08%). She develops her favorite theme of purchasing power by visiting a cereal farmer. “I will eliminate VAT on a basket of one hundred food and hygiene products”promises the finalist.

Tuesday 12. Marine Le Pen connects a passage in the morning of France Inter and an interview in the evening on TF1. She takes the opportunity to denounce “the process” by Emmanuel Macron for “try to recover” left-wing voters, when he says he is ready to “to move” on pension reform. The candidate is also going to the Eure for a press conference on the institutions and “exercise of power”. The opportunity for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter to make a remarkable outing on her conception of freedom of the press.

Emmanuel Macron, he continues his field work in Alsace, between walkabout and outdoor meeting in Strasbourg. “We are in pain”, launches a 61-year-old caregiver to the president, in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin). For the macronists, it is a question of bringing Jupiter down from his Olympus in order to show his ability to dialogue with the French in difficulty. “In this first week of the campaign, the objective is empathy, the field and listening”explains an LREM executive.

Wednesday 13. The president-candidate is focusing on his media plan, with an interview on TF1’s “20 Heures”. On this occasion, Emmanuel Macron says he is ready to “enrich” his project, looking at Yannick Jadot and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “I know that there are things on which we can go further, on ecology in particular”he assures.

For her part, Marine Le Pen is seeking to give credibility to her international stature, with a new press conference, this time focusing on her vision in terms of foreign policy and her diplomatic orientations. It is pronounced in particular “in favor of the implementation of a strategic rapprochement between NATO and Russia”. The meeting of the candidate is disrupted by an elected environmentalist, evacuated unceremoniously. Marine Le Pen, who no longer benefits from the lightning conductor Eric Zemmour, finds herself once again demonized.

Thursday 14. To regain control, the candidate is organizing her first meeting between the two rounds, in Avignon (Vaucluse). She calls on voters to block Emmanuel Macron, castigating his opponent’s record. “I say to the abstainers: ‘Come and vote. If the people vote, the people win’.” Emmanuel Macron is moving to Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) to talk about ecology. He takes the opportunity to tackle his opponent again.

Friday 15. After pensions or ecology, Emmanuel Macron makes a new “move” on his program. Questioned on franceinfo by a listener, the candidate takes a step towards the deconjugalization of the allowance for disabled adults (AAH), by evoking a “aberrant situation”. The president-candidate also goes to the restoration site of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral on the occasion of the three years of the fire which ravaged the religious building.

Marine Le Pen strolls through the market in Pertuis, in the Vaucluse. Questioned by a woman wearing a white hijab, the RN candidate is struggling to assume her positions on the ban on wearing the veil in public space. She who hammered a few days earlier wanting to sanction by a fine the wearing of this religious symbol outside the private sphere, finally concedes “not be obtuse” and returns this “complex problem” to the “discussion” in Parliament, then a citizens’ initiative referendum.

Saturday 16. Marine Le Pen goes to Saint-Rémy-sur-Avre (Eure-et-Loir). In this rural town which largely placed her in the lead in the first round (37.2%), she announces that she wants to lead France “as a mother” and “defend the most vulnerable”. But the seduction operation is parasitized by the publication of a new investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf), which accuses the candidate of having embezzled nearly 137,000 euros of public money between 2004 and 2017.

The same day, Emmanuel Macron organizes a new meeting in Marseille, “a city to which he is very emotionally attached”, according to his team. In a postcard setting, the candidate still speaks to his left, promising a “politics which will be ecological or will not be”. The crowd on big nights is not there, but the outgoing president is getting his message across, notably by promising a Prime Minister “directly responsible for ecological planning”.

“April 24 is a referendum for or against ecology.”

Emmanuel Macron

at a meeting in Marseille

The day is also marked by demonstrations all over France against the far right, but also against the outgoing president. The processions bring together 22,000 people to the sound of the slogan “Neither Macron nor Le Pen”.

Sunday 17. No travel this Easter weekend, but several TV sets. Guest on France 3, Marine Le Pen castigates the attacks carried out by Emmanuel Macron. “I have never been a climatosceptic”she says, assuring that she will not return to “the Paris agreement” on the climate if elected on April 24. The program “Sept à Huit”, on TF1, broadcasts a portrait of each of the two candidates. Asked about Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen is not tender with his opponent.

“I find it very brutal towards me, and sometimes even offensive.”

Marine Le Pen on Emmanuel Macron

on TF1

The president-candidate warns of “the extremes” of which he acknowledges not having succeeded to reduce influence during his five-year term. At the same time, the results of the consultation carried out within the People’s Union of Jean-Luc Mélenchon fall: two thirds of the supporters of the “rebellious” leader will not vote Emmanuel Macron in the second round and therefore do not intend to block on the far right.

Monday 18. New trip for Marine Le Pen, this time in Normandy, but still on conquered ground. Gabriel Attal criticizes the campaign “in slippers” of the RN candidatewho enjoys a walkabout in Saint-Pierre-en-Auge (Calvados). “Lhe dirty tricks from the European Union, a few days before the second round, I’m used to that.”she says in response to accusations of embezzlement of public funds, before being arrested by a pro-Macron activist.

At the end of the afternoon, the Head of State is the guest of “C à vous”, the France 5 talk show. The candidate reviews his program and again criticizes his rival. It brings together more than 1.5 million viewers, a record for the show this season.

Tuesday April 19. No travel for the two candidates, who prefer to devote themselves to preparing for the debate between the two rounds scheduled for the next day. The candidate, who wishes “wash the affront” of the failed debate of 2017, according to one supporter, decides to isolate himself at his home with his advisers to best prepare for this decisive meeting. The president-candidate does not foresee any greening. “He takes this confrontation very seriously, but he also wants to continue his activities as head of state”says a Macronie executive.

Wednesday April 20. The high point of the electoral campaign, the debate promised not to be the remake of 2017. It is indeed a rather tight match which 15.6 million viewers attend for nearly three hours. Always camped behind her strategy of giving credibility to her stature as a stateswoman, the far-right candidate does not fall into the trap of the frontal attack as she did five years ago. Very offensive, sometimes even arrogant, Emmanuel Macron puts Marine Le Pen several times in the face of his approximations, but also in the face of the texts of laws that she did not vote as a deputy. Saccording to one survey of the Elabe institute for BFM and The Express, 59% of viewers designate the Head of State as the winner of this face-to-face.

Thursday April 21. A symbolic date: twenty years ago to the day, Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential election. After a meeting with truck drivers in the Somme, Marine Le Pen chose Pas-de-Calais, electoral stronghold of the RN, for her last public meeting in Arras.

Emmanuel Macron walks the streets of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). Despite a hectic arrival, the candidate continues his seduction operation with the popular electorate by detailing his “Neighborhoods 2030” plan. Before his participation in a new “20 Hours” on France 2, the president wets the shirt by putting on boxing gloves with local association actors.

Friday April 22. For their final day of campaigning, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron take a last step. The president plans a “rural sequence” in Figeac, in the Lot. The RN candidate remains in Pas-de-Calais before ending her campaign near Abbeville (Somme). At midnight, the two candidates will have to stop campaigning and will only have to wait for the verdict of the polls, Sunday at 8 p.m.


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