In the end, he will not go all the way. While he entered the campaign on September 4, 2021 by doing “comeback of France” his hobbyhorse, Arnaud Montebourg announced, Wednesday, January 19, his withdrawal from the 2022 presidential race. A predictable decision, which had been announced a few days earlier by his teams and which comes following four tormented months of campaigning. In the absence of an alliance, he affirmed that he would not support any other candidate.
The former Socialist Minister for the Economy and Productive Recovery (2012-2014) announced his decision in a video posted to his social media on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., while Emmanuel Macron took the floor at the same time from the hemicycle of the European Parliament for a long-awaited statement. With his head held high, his tone solemn and his gaze plunged into the camera, Mr. Montebourg spoke directly to the French men and women, perched on a side of the green hill of Mont Beuvray, a symbolic place in the history of France, overlooking the archaeological site of Bibracte. Mont Beuvray has become a regular meeting place for Arnaud Montebourg over the course of his political career, spanning his birth department of Nièvre and Saône-et-Loire, in the heart of Morvan.
Acknowledging that his campaign failed to print, Arnaud Montebourg claims in his video: “I believe it is useless and hopeless to add disorder to the confusion of too many applications. And, in my soul and conscience, I do not wish to participate in the devaluation of the democracy that we need to build the future. »
Critics dump
As he underlines in his message, the entrepreneur who has become the champion of Made in France had made the reindustrialization of the country, nuclear power, aid to “return to the land to help the French leave the metropolises”, a vision of intransigent secularism and a “demanding immigration policy” the heart of his presidential program, unfolding according to his media interventions.
But in November, two months following entering the campaign, Arnaud Montebourg had encountered serious turbulence, which he was still dragging on at the start of 2022. On November 4, 2021, the candidate’s visit to a sweater manufacturer had turned to the media war once morest a backdrop of false information that he had relayed. Then on November 7, the former minister proposed suspending financial flows to countries that refused to accept their nationals expelled from France, according to a television interview. A proposal that had triggered a barrage of criticism on the left and sparked friction and defections within his campaign team. Despite serious doubts, Mr. Montebourg had finally decided to continue his race for the Elysée.
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