Four days after the official announcement of his candidacy for the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron carried out, on Monday March 7 in Poissy (Yvelines), his first trip as a candidate in an international environment which leaves him little time to put aside his role of head of state.
“I will be president as much as I have to and I will be a candidate as much as I can”he said at the start of the evening, during a « conversation » with 200 inhabitants, in a context “which is very heavy” with the “return of the war in Europe”.
“I who have defended the” at the same time “, this one is complicated (…) it is difficult to be president and candidate at the same time”he acknowledged.
After this meeting and before « filer » to give “an urgent phone call on the international context”the candidate president indicated to an LCI journalist that he “would not debate with the other candidates before the first round. No sitting president who is standing for re-election has done so”.
“I prefer the debate with the French”
“I do not shy away from the debate. Rather than having meetings where people applaud you because they are already convinced, I prefer the debate with the French, that’s what I owe them., he explained. The possibility of a meeting next Saturday in Marseille is no longer on the agenda.
L’expression ” at the same time ” often used by the outgoing president sums up this presidential campaign hit like never before for more than half a century by an international crisis, forcing the twelve candidates to move from very concrete proposals to the complexity of geopolitics.
Emmanuel Macron thus spoke in the afternoon with American President Joe Biden, after his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin the day before, and before the Chinese Xi Jinping on Tuesday. The multiple diplomatic meetings will culminate Thursday and Friday in Versailles for a European summit.
In Poissy, he therefore put forward his first candidate proposals, while he is given well ahead of the voting intentions for the first round.
He has thus undertaken, if he is re-elected, to abolish the television license fee and to triple the ceiling of the « prime Macron » which so far allows companies to pay up to 1,000 euros without charge or tax.
Before him, right-wing candidates Valérie Pécresse (Les Républicains, LR) and far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour had also announced their intention to abolish this fee. “At the rate at which Emmanuel Macron is copying my program, he may soon be proposing the end of immigration! » quipped the former polemicist in a tweet.
Improved aid on gasoline
Picking up his president’s cap – “because I can’t wait, we have to give visibility for the days to come” – Emmanuel Macron announced that government aid on gasoline would be “improved” around “the mileage allowance and inflation allowance approach”while energy prices are soaring because of the war.
“It is more relevant than the measures to reduce long-term taxation because fuel taxation is used to finance our energy transition”, he continued. As in response to Marine Le Pen, her most serious rival according to the polls, who is in favor of a “permanent reduction in VAT from 20 to 5.5%”.
In terms of immigration, a traditionally central theme in the campaign, Mr. Macron wants to be “humanist and demanding” at the same time, to be neither “well-meaning and lax” neither in “exclusion and caricature”.
Since 2015, Europe is “under increasing migratory pressure”, underlined the Head of State. It is therefore appropriate to “better protect our borders, better control migratory flows”even if “We don’t have our hands on everything”according to him, who cites the “wars” and the climate crisis. He first calls for a “true partnership” with countries of origin and transit, with a view to “to give a future to the country” candidates for exile.
Finally, concerning the integration of immigrants, the Head of State mentioned the importance of a “settlement policy” aimed at preventing all new arrivals from settling in the same neighbourhoods, towns or departments. For him, work, via training, apprenticeship and work-study, is also a major lever for integration.
After about an hour and a half of discussion, the candidate president thanked the public before leaving the room. “Physiologically, I got used to seven-hour debates”he joked by way of closing this precise exercise.