Hello, it’s lunchtime in Paris and at 6:00 p.m. the official list of presidential candidates will be final.
What happened yesterday? Outgoing president Emmanuel Macron officially announced that he is running for a second term.
Why does it matter? No one doubted that the president would run once more. This clarification might revive a campaign stifled by the war in Ukraine.
President Emmanuel Macron sent, on Thursday evening, a letter to his fellow citizens to declare his reelection bid. With a brutal war raging in Ukraine, it was not the time for a grandiose display like the one that accompanied his victory in the courtyard of the Louvre museum. “I am a candidate to invent, together with you, a unique French and European response to the challenges of the century,” he wrote. Known for his interminable speeches, the president made it sober.
As many incumbents seeking reelection, Emmanuel Macron draws an encouraging, even rosy, picture of his first term. “We have not succeeded in everything. There are choices that, with the experience I have acquired with you, I would no doubt make differently. But the transformations undertaken during this mandate have allowed many of our compatriots to live better,” he continued.
He also warned that he would be a part-time candidate. “Of course, I will not be able to campaign as I would have hoped because of the context. But with clarity and commitment, I will explain our project, our will to continue to move our country forward with each of you,” he added.
Five years ago, the newcomer that he was achieved what no one had done before him: to become president without having ever been elected to any office before. It was a profound break with a well-established tradition in France, according to which a candidate only gets a chance if he or she bears the scars of the hardships suffered to reach the presidency.
After five years of crisis, the youthful figure of Emmanuel Macron has taken some wrinkles. First, he had to face the “Yellow Jackets,” a popular uprising protesting once morest growing gas taxes and then once morest almost everything linked to his presidency. After that, a pandemic hit a country that discovered it was not as prepared as it thought. Finally, he had a front-row seat (and still does) to witness the escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine, the first in decades on European soil where a sovereign country invades and bombs another.
Nothing happened as Emmanuel Macron had planned. While he thought he might be an audacious reforming president, he became a crisis manager. The question of what Macronism was, and whether it was left-wing or right-wing, has long been asked. The nickname “President of the Rich” provided an answer, as well as one of the sentences of his letter published Thursday, in which he said to his fellow citizens that they might have to work for a longer period and that business taxes must be reduced. But it became a bit incidental when he decided to abandon supply-side politics with the pandemic, as he will do once more to bear the shock of war. In his letter, Emmanuel Macron also promised a vast amount of public investments probably to the delight of the potential center-left voters.
The outgoing president starts his campaign on a strong foot. According to the last Le Monde poll published on Friday, the rally’ round the flag effect inflates the voting intentions in his favor. If the first round of the presidential election were to take place now, he would obtain 30,5% of the votes, far ahead of the two far-right candidates, Marine Le Pen (le Rassemblement National, 14,5%) and Eric Zemmour (Reconquête !, 13%). He would defeat any opponent by wide margins in the second round.
One has to go back to the 1965 presidential election, the first one with universal suffrage, to find such a large gap between the two candidates likely to reach the second round. At that time, Charles De Gaulle defeated François Mitterrand and half of the French population was not born.
Quote of the day
“They screw up on everything.”
The campaign manager of the environmentalist candidate decided to sack Sandrine Rousseau, a prominent figure of his team, following controversial statements made anonymously but attributed to her were published in the daily Le Parisien. This article “illustrates his choice to give precedence to personal expression over the collective,” said Mounir Satouri. “We take note of her decision. Sandrine Rousseau therefore no longer assumes any responsibilities within the campaign,” he added. “They screw up on everything,” said a source to Le Parisien regarding the direction of a wavering campaign. With only 7,5% of the intentional votes according to the last Le Monde poll, Yannick Jadot has no chance to reach the second round.
Countdown
37 Days until the presidential election’s first round
51 Days until the presidential election’s second round
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.