The time is no longer for splitting or disruption. Less than a week before the first round of the presidential election on April 10, the time for unity has come. The one that Emmanuel Macron tried to tie during his meeting in Nanterre, Saturday April 2, at La Défense Arena, to bring together a ” quiet strength “, “in the face of those who try to sow the poison of division, to fragment, to fracture men”. The enemy is designated: the extreme right. The explicit model: François Mitterrand, elected in 1981 under the slogan of ” quiet strength “.
Like the socialist president who, on the eve of his re-election in 1988, called for remobilizing the left in the face of « clans »to “bands” and to « factions », like also De Gaulle who, in 1965, alerted the citizens of“collapse” of the Republic if he were not reappointed, the Head of State is the best guarantor of the values of France “universal” , “fraternal” and secular, in the face of those who divulge “filthy untruths” and “nauseous theories”.
Even before having overcome the obstacle of the first round, Emmanuel Macron projects himself into the second, which could, according to the polls, oppose him to Marine Le Pen, representative of the National Rally (RN).
After the laborious entry into the campaign of a candidate deemed distant, carrying unpopular measures, such as the shift in the retirement age to 65, and sometimes brutal, such as the counterparties required for the income of active solidarity (RSA), the Head of State ” snatch “ Sunday, in the words of one of his relatives, to regain the favor of a social democracy which had brought him to power in 2017.
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The gradual but continuous erosion of the outgoing president in the polls, concomitant with the dynamic recorded by the far-right candidate, obliges him. “Emmanuel Macron needs to mobilize this centre-left electorate. He wants to put it back on track, but the exercise is infinitely more difficult than in 2017,” observes Frédéric Dabi, Deputy Director General of the IFOP polling institute.
The gap is closing between the two possible rivals in the second round, to the point of suggesting a victory for Marine Le Pen. “I don’t listen to those who have already won or the Cassandres; no, but we must together take up the challenge of combat”assured the Head of State.
To find the momentum that he lacks, Emmanuel Macron first tried to appease his image. Playing on empathy to contradict those who accuse him of arrogance and say he is distant from the concerns of the French, he mentioned these “looks sometimes so friendly, so affectionate”sometimes “angry too”whom he may have come across. “Consideration, respect, the fact of speaking… The fact of speaking is very important”, he insisted in his promotional video, “The Candidate”, broadcast friday 1is avril. “Resentment is a terrible motor for extremes”, he explained.
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