how candidates organize themselves to campaign in the face of Emmanuel Macron’s media omnipresence

In the middle of the sequence of commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Emmanuel Macron is, on Thursday, at the center of the game. Three days before the European elections, the candidates are despite everything trying to exist.

On the landing beaches, with Joe Biden, with Volodymyr Zelensky… It’s impossible to miss Emmanuel Macron during his memorial marathon. Thursday June 6, the Head of State will also be on 8 p.m. on TF1 and France 2. It’s hard for the European candidates not to be completely eclipsed while we are in the middle of money time. Everyone knows that opinion is now crystallizing. Even if at the RN they do not take a dim view of this overexposure of the head of state. “He’s doing too much, slices a running mate of Jordan Bardella, it’s the best way to mobilize against him so we say thank you”. For the last two days of campaigning at the RN, there is no question of everyone going to the sets. “We’re going to step aside to let Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella use the speaking time we have left!”

There is still a meeting left for Raphaël Glucksmann in Lille on Friday alongside Martine Aubry. The PS candidate, who continues to denounce the attempt to “kidnapping” of the election by the executive, does not want to let itself steal the spotlight, even if “we can’t do much about the news of the landing at the national level, admits one of his running mates, so we asked our teams to be very mobilized on the ground until Friday evening.” As for Manon Aubry, she will be in Lyon on Thursday evening with Jean-Luc Mélenchon for a final call for mobilization. No preferential treatment for Valérie Hayer, the meeting of the Macronist candidate in Nice with Édouard Philippe, directly with interview with the president, may not make the headlines. “The main thing is that the local press talks about it”plays down a campaign setting.

François-Xavier Bellamy will commemorate the landing in his own way. He speaks on Thursday morning in front of the Cross of Lorraine in Cannes, very far from the beaches of Normandy. When the ecologist Marie Toussaint plays the counter-programming, after a visit Thursday morning to franceinfo for the 8:30 a.m., she will distribute leaflets in person in Paris with the former presidential candidate Éva Joly. Marion Maréchal still has some media to do while her teams will tow and campaign actively on social networks.

Oppositions are especially headstrong against the interview with the President of the Republic. LR, the PS, the environmentalists have seized Arcom. The audiovisual policeman warned: “all or part” of the interview may be counted as speaking time for his side, depending on what the President says. Which implies balancing this speaking time with the other candidates by Friday midnight.