Emmanuel Macron conceded it himself on Wednesday evening, at the very end of his speech on the crisis in Ukraine: “This war also comes to impact our democratic life and the electoral campaign which officially opens at the end of the week. She poses above all, for the candidate president, a complex equation: how to keep a campaign agenda while being monopolized by the management of a world conflict. As demonstrated once more by his day on Thursday, when he juggled between his calls to Vladimir Putin then Volodymyr Zelensky… and the final touches to his application letter.
In fact, around him, no one is able to commit to the specific appointments for the next few days. “He will move around, meet the French and come up with proposals, that’s for sure. Several options are selected. But it can move so much at any moment that we can’t confirm any of them for the moment. Everything will depend on the international situation, ”slips a relative, nevertheless affirming that a “geography of the countryside” has been envisaged by his teams. It is planned to revolve mainly around thematic trips and public meetings. According to our information, the first will take place next Monday, in the Paris suburbs, and devoted to the theme of education. Unless, of course, the news in Ukraine disrupts his agenda by then.
“There is going to be a balancing act”
Only one thing was nevertheless recorded last Monday: there will be no big Marseille meeting this weekend, as initially planned. “For the moment, it is not canceled, just postponed for the weekend of March 12-13, if all goes well”, we know Just before the first round, another large-scale rally, this time -ci in Ile-de-France, will also be organised. Two sites are in the balance: the U Arena in Nanterre and the Accor Arena in Bercy. “There is going to be a tightrope walker meeting: when you are head of the armies in the middle of a war, how do you hold a meeting? If the slightest thing happens, and he is in a meeting, the opposition will seize it in the second, ”already worries a majority strategist.
The supporting roles should therefore have a more important role than envisaged in the event that the candidate Macron cannot campaign as planned. Ministers, spokespersons, figure of the majority, will be invited to deploy in the media and in the field to provide following-sales service. Communication on social networks will also be privileged. With a dominant tone already heard in the elements of language of Macronie, that of the “president who protects” and sobriety in words. “The themes of work, health and education will be our compass, we insist. But the crisis we are going through brings back more than ever other subjects that Emmanuel Macron also wants to bring to a second term. They revolve around sovereignty, whether energy, digital and industrial, but also around security and defense issues. »
Emmanuel Macron now has only thirty-seven days to try to campaign. A relative handicap, however, given recent polls (three points more in a week in the last Harris Interactive barometer, now peaking at 27% of voting intentions in the first round). This demonstrates, as everyone at the Élysée, starting with him, knows how much the president, draped in his stature as a warlord, might take advantage of this competitive advantage in the coming campaign.