There’s nothing like seeing an old adversary come back up to give you a boost. Worried about the risk of demobilization from their base, two weeks before the first round of the presidential election on April 10, supporters of Emmanuel Macron are seizing on the resurgence of Marine Le Pen in the polls to try to reactivate fear of the extreme right, and therefore invite their supporters to campaign despite the head of state’s status as the big favorite.
A strategy rolled out with application by the three ministers present, Saturday March 26, in Louviers (Eure), for a public meeting in support of the candidacy of the President of the Republic, in the absence of the principal concerned. Microphone in hand, Bruno Le Maire comes down from the stage to face the 250 people present in the House of Sports and Associations. Posters inviting Macronist sympathizers to attend their candidate’s meeting in Paris on April 2 were plastered on the walls. “It’s the most important election, and I feel a certain indifference rising”worries the Minister of the Economy, who summarizes the stakes of the period in fundamental considerations, a month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine: ” war and peace “.
“Tartufferie”
In this context, the “astonishing metamorphosis” that Marine Le Pen directs, she “who would have become a sympathetic breeder of cats”would only be, listening to Bruno Le Maire, ” lying “ and “Tartufferie”. “She, the heiress of Jean-Marie Le Pen”, “who considers foreigners responsible for everything”, “is not and never will be a solution”he shouts. “It will remain a problem for French democracy”judges the boss of Bercy, who erects opposite an Emmanuel Macron “president of purchasing power, labor and reconquest”.
Outside, around twenty “yellow vests” sing and blow fog horns in an attempt to disrupt the public meeting. A woman will briefly go on stage to protest against the vaccination pass, before being evacuated. The speakers continue, imperturbable, but with closed faces.
“One of Marine Le Pen’s closest collaborators is still Thierry Mariani”, engages the Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, about the MEP National Rally (RN), thurifer of Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and the Syrian dictator, Bashar Al-Assad. The RN “depends on Russian funding”adds this close friend of Emmanuel Macron, who deplores that the company “gets used to extremes”. “Extremes, we fight them, we don’t get used to them. Marine Le Pen, we fight her, we don’t get used to it”he concludes.
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