Through journalists, Emmanuel Macron addresses public opinion. This press conference at the Elysee Palace on Thursday 9 December, when France takes the presidency of the Council of the European Union, is therefore a major issue, especially when the campaign for the 2022 presidential election is in full swing and the head of the state is preparing to relaunch in the race for the Elysee. How to get your messages across? Can the question-and-answer game with journalists represent a trap or does it remain, whatever happens, an asset? Decryption.
Emmanuel Macron: “My role at this time is to continue to act in the service of our people to protect, to take the sometimes difficult decisions, and to preserve our unity. And whatever democratic choices will be made next spring, they must be made in calm, the greatest pluralism, the greatest freedom of discussion, exchange and controversy. For controversy is the French spirit. But hatred is hatred of France. The role of the president of the Republic is to avoid that. “
Laetitia Krupa: Isn’t this last response from Emmanuel Macron about the future presidential election ultimately, and I am magnifying the line on purpose, the one to remember?
Gaspard Gantzer: It is certainly this answer that will be the most remembered and commented on in the days and weeks to come. Why ? because even though this press conference was about Europe, we are in an extremely political period, and the president himself had prepared himself for questions at the national level. He dodged them but in the end, he had prepared his pieces of language to frame the presidential debate at the end of this press conference.
Why did Emmanuel Macron only organize two press conferences in his mandate?
We would have to ask him the question but we can make the following deduction: the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron prefers disintermediated exercises, that is to say when he addresses the French directly as part of the presidential speeches he has been able to. do during the Covid or in more original settings than he was able to do on YouTube or social networks, with McFly and Carlito for example.
François Hollande, himself, had organized six press conferences and Nicolas Sarkozy had repeated the exercise four times, the last of which in February 2012 a few months before the first round of the election, the president-candidate decided to invite journalists to speak … from Europe. he comes out of a meeting with Angela Merkel at the Elysee Palace.
Nicolas Sarkozy: “I would like to welcome our German friends, to Chancellor Merkel. We have discussed all the subjects of the day and all the structural subjects. You know, moreover, this is nothing new, we are talking to each other extremely regularly. We talk to each other in confidence, we talk to each other as friends and as allies. “
Is it possible to compare the press conference of Emmanuel Macron on Thursday and that of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, both devoted to Europe?
The parallel is disturbing, since we are in both cases a few months before the presidential election. At the time, Nicolas Sarkozy had fought a lot on a global and European level to keep France in its place, but also in the euro zone crossed by a major financial crisis. He wanted to presidentialize his communication as much as possible so as not to mix with his other competitors in the presidential election. It seems that Emmanuel Macron is following the same strategy by remaining very “Jupiterian” as long as possible and by holding press conferences in this capacity.
Emmanuel Macron is determined, it is true, to keep this advantage of the presidency of the European Union until the end since a last summit is scheduled in Brussels on March 24 and 25.