(Paris) One week before the second round of the presidential election, nothing is decided between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, who granted themselves a short rest on this Easter Sunday, in an electric campaign where everyone tries to bring together beyond his camp and returns blow after blow.
Posted at 2:51 p.m.
In this duel at loggerheads, the outgoing president has a slight advantage over his far-right rival, if opinion polls are to be believed. He would win next Sunday in a range of 53 to 55.5% against 44.5 to 47% for Marine Le Pen.
The challenge of this second round is to convince the undecided and the abstainers, who in the first round were more than 26% of the population of voting age.
The televised debate on Wednesday evening between the two rivals will play a decisive role. In 2017, the candidate of the National Rally sank against Emmanuel Macron. She believes she is better prepared this time and says she is “extremely serene”.
“In my head I am ready to exercise power,” she said in an interview broadcast by TF1 on Sunday evening.
In the meantime, she spent a studious Easter Sunday to “work and prepare for the debate” in the company of several relatives, said her spokesperson Sébastien Chenu.
Several of them came back in the media on his plan to ban the veil in public space: it is no longer the priority in the fight against Islamism.
The ban is only a “term objective”, according to the president of RN Jordan Bardella, who distinguishes “the veil for French women […] from immigration in the 1960s and 1970s” of the “veil which has now become an instrument of pressure for Islamic fundamentalists”.
“Stinky Ball”
The Le Pen camp stepped up to the plate on Sunday on another subject, that of the accusations of embezzlement of European public money targeting their candidate, denouncing “a stinky ball”.
Marine Le Pen and her relatives are accused by the European anti-fraud office of having embezzled around 600,000 euros during their mandates as MEPs, according to a new report submitted in March to French justice and revealed by Mediapart.
Since the first round, the strategy of Mme Le Pen aims to establish its credibility, and continue to smooth its image.
She maintains the theme of purchasing power, rather than immigration, and opposes two France, that of the “elites” favorable according to her to Emmanuel Macron and the other, popular, which she claims to embody.
His economic program does not convince the Nobel Prize winner Jean Tirole, who judged, in a column published in The Midi Dispatchthat it is “concealing and unfunded” and “will permanently impoverish our country”.
On the union side, Laurent Berger and Philippe Martinez, general secretaries of the CFDT and the CGT respectively, called for “not to entrust the keys to democracy” to the candidate RN, in a joint text published in the Sunday newspaper, without however mention the name of Emmanuel Macron.
” To convince ”
Entering the campaign late, the outgoing president is multiplying by seeking to mobilize, convince and be “listening” to the French.
In Marseille on Saturday, he made a long plea in favor of ecology – a crucial theme on the left and in particular among the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon – while calling for a rally behind him in the face of the rise of the far right.
But according to the consultation for the second round launched by Mr. Mélenchon with his 310,000 online supporters, the blank or null vote (37.65%) is in the lead. Added together, the blank or null vote and abstention (nearly 29%) are clearly in the majority, while the Macron vote represents only a third.
For the LFI leader, 3and man of the first round, this result “is not an instruction given to anyone”. Only message hammered out by Mr. Mélenchon from the evening of April 10: “not a single voice” to Mr.me The pen.
Environmentalists – who have called for them to vote Macron – welcome with skepticism the greening of the speech of the outgoing president. “There is no reason to truly believe his promises,” EELV boss Julien Bayou said on Sunday.
Emmanuel Macron can however take advantage of a growing number of supporters, from left and right, cherishing the hope of a major political recomposition.
After the athletes, a number of personalities from the world of culture, then on Sunday a thousand players in the health sector, called to vote for him in the second round to block Marine Le Pen.
The far right has “not fallen”, contrary to what it promised in 2017, acknowledged on TF1 Emmanuel Macron, who explains it by the succession of crises – “yellow vests”, pandemic, war in Ukraine . “Extremes play with fears, take advantage of them and do not necessarily offer a solution,” he denounced.
From Monday, yet a holiday, the two opponents will put on the gloves.
Marine Le Pen will take the direction of Normandy with the watchword “convince”. Emmanuel Macron will be on the airwaves of France Culture in the morning then guest of C à vous on France 5.