Re-elected President Emmanuel Macron will not even have enjoyed the state of grace that traditionally follows an election for a few hours. From the evening of the second round, Sunday, the oppositions launched the battle for the legislative elections, a little as if the two meetings of April 10 and 24 were only one stage among others. The re-election of Emmanuel Macron? “Seen”, as the young people say.
And the oppositions are not solely responsible for this strange political climate. The outgoing president seems to have himself recorded an inglorious victory with, on Sunday evening, this ceremony a little “sad” at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, according to the term of one of his relatives. The discreet party then, almost shameful at the HQ of En Marche where Emmanuel Macron ended up spending Tuesday evening to thank his teams after 48 hours behind closed doors at the residence of La Lanterne, near Versailles. Well, behind closed doors, not quite. Since we learn that the Head of State also had lunch with his political entourage on Tuesday, to fine-tune his executive and his future majority, at the risk of giving the impression, since Sunday, of talking more to his own people than to the France.
The president must talk to France again and even more, go back to the campaign. In view of the flaws accentuated and not resorbed by the presidential election, nothing is worse than giving the impression of a “with you” – its slogan for the last few weeks – which turns into “between us”.
A fundamental error that he is not the only one to commit, let’s be fair. The left speaks only to itself, in this quest for a union that was impossible in the past and is now achievable – what a miracle! Not better on the right, where shop discussions are suddenly more urgent than the civilizational peril or the threatened French identity, which yesterday were all the talks.
Emmanuel Macron, it’s true, is not the only one at risk of reconnecting with one another. But his responsibility is quite different. Re-elected at the end of a campaign which did not revive the French dream, which did not serve the “sad passions” that he likes to evoke so much, he, more than others, has the duty to get out of his camp, to respond to this nervous, angry, wait-and-see, resigned nation, and sometimes all of this at the same time.
The president is going to Cergy, in Val-d’Oise, on Wednesday April 27 to meet residents, traders and young entrepreneurs. It’s smart, and it’s one of the signs that Emmanuel Macron understood that he had to act quickly. Val-d’Oise is a department where abstention was higher than at the national level, 32.5%. The challenge now is consistency. And this is the paradox for a president who will not be able to run for a third term: the next five years, to be useful, will have to be those of the permanent campaign.