The president-candidate had no choice, but it is always a somewhat delicate step for an outgoing candidate for re-election. Because a program for a second term is also, implicitly, a criticism of what we did not do during the first. This is even more the case this time since the second half of the five-year term was “frozen” by the movement of “yellow vests” first then, above all, the health crisis.
Commitments made in 2017, such as that of eliminating 120,000 civil servant positions or pension reform, have gone overboard. Basically, with his project, Emmanuel Macron, will have to make sense.
For the time being, what seems to give meaning to Emmanuel Macron’s candidacy are above all the crises. And first of all the war in Ukraine, Europe plunged into an unprecedented turmoil since 1945, and a president who makes a point of protecting the French. It’s not nothing, it’s a decisive mission of course, but it’s not enough to define a project for a second term.
After having delayed his entry into the campaign ring as much as possible, candidate Macron has sometimes given the impression for ten days of fleeing the match. He refuses to debate with his competitors, which gave Monday evening a litany of interventions on TF1 where eight candidates followed one another to evoke their vision of the war in Ukraine and its consequences in France. And he chose a rather quiet campaign start in front of a very wise audience of citizens in Poissy last week.
The Head of State is leading the race in polls which make him the great favorite in the polls. But the risk of an overly cautious campaign is boredom, and ultimately immobility. At the Élysée, we are convinced that a furtive, almost subliminal campaign will not be enough. Not only to win, but above all to then govern in the event of re-election.
Hence the concern to put on the table angry subjects, such as the postponement of the retirement age to 65 years. And the obligation for the candidate Macron to carry a project that arouses envy. Not won when we measure the current indifference of a good part of the opinion for a campaign which could well announce a new surge of abstention on April 10th.