Hello, it’s lunchtime in Paris and Emmanuel Macron is on the campaign trail in Pau, in the South-west, a city whose mayor François Bayrou is his main political ally, as the head of a center-right party.
What happened yesterday? The outgoing president held a lengthy press conference to present his presidential platform.
Why does it matter? Emmanuel Macron went into enough detail about what he intends to do if re-elected to deprive his opponents of the argument that he is skipping the campaign. His goal is to force them to spend more time debating his proposals than defending their own.
President Emmanuel Macron usually shuns reporters, but candidate Emmanuel Macron is a little different. With the election in sight, he spent more than four hours presenting his policy platform and answering journalists’ questions on Thursday. We are unable to confirm, at the moment, whether a re-elected President Macron would continue to do so.
His press conference was a response to critics who say that he is trying to skip campaigning because he already enjoys a commanding lead in the polls. Sure, if the first round of the presidential election was held today, he would gather 29% of the vote, almost twice the total (16%) of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, according to an Ipsos survey for The world published today. The gap with his second-place opponent would be the largest since the presidential election of 1969. He would also win the runoff by a landslide with 59% of the vote.
On Thursday, Emmanuel Macron confirmed that he would raise the age of retirement (to 65 instead of 62), that a social benefit for people with few resources would be contingent on weekly hours of work or training (“for those who can”), that schools principals would have more autonomy especially in hiring their teachers, and that teachers’ missions should be reformed in return for incentives such as a salary increase. Emmanuel Macron also plans to lower taxes for businesses and individuals. These are all ideas you would expect in a right-wing platform.
He also put forward some proposals that shouldn’t displease the left, such as increasing financial support for single mothers; automating social aid payments to the most needy, to the benefit of those who currently do not apply for it, often due to lack of information; as well as “taking control of several industrial players” in the energy sector (in other words, nationalizing them).
He wants to invest billions into health and education (which rings a bell on the left), on the condition that reforms are undertaken (which sounds right-ish.) He said that Macronism will become compromise-based, which is almost an oxymoron regarding a president who for five years decided on everything alone with his chief of staff, Alexis Kohler. Oh, and he also said that he would govern differently (If you believe that, I have a beautiful bridge to sell to you).
His right-wing opponents denounced a copycat mimicking their ideas, and his left-wing rivals all agreed that was the case. Emmanuel Macron seemed annoyed when asked if his political location was more to the right than it was five years ago. “There are reforms that you could call coming from and being inspired by the left, others inspired by the right,” he retorted. “I, royally, totally, presidentially don’t give a damn!” he added.
His press conference will make it much harder for his opponents to claim he intends to be re-elected without saying anything but “trust me.” That being said, Emmanuel Macron still refuses to debate with his opponents before the first round. On Thursday, he took care to avoid talking about them − they who only talk about him, in bad terms. He only mentioned, on one occasion, those “platforms that propose a retreat to the French people – the return to a form of nostalgia, sometimes a nostalgia of what has never been”, a not-too-subtle shot at far-right candidates Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour.
In doing so, he is giving the impression that he would love the election to be a referendum on himself, on his past term and his program for a second (and by definition, last) term. “If the French decide that I have decided wrongly, they will do without me,” he said. Asked what he would do in case of defeat, he spoke his mind in an almost blunt way. “It is not a whim to tell you that I have not really asked myself the question,” he replied.
Number of the day
300
According to a study by the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques published on Thursday, households will have gained an of average 0.9% in disposable income per year between 2017 and mid-2022, some 300 euros all in all. This is much higher than what was observed during the five-year terms of François Hollande (+0.1% per year) and Nicolas Sarkozy (+0.2%), marked by the repercussions of the 2008 financial crisis, but less than during Jacques Chirac’s two terms (+1.9% and +1.3%) in a more favorable economic environment.
Countdown
24 days until the presidential election’s first round
38 days until the presidential election’s second round
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.