Final sprint in the presidential election one week before the first round. After Emmanuel Macron, several candidates galvanized their troops on Sunday, such as the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, given third position in the polls, in Toulouse and the right-wing candidate Valérie Pécresse in Paris.
This is the last straight line in this extraordinary campaign hit hard by the Covid crisis and then the war in Ukraine. With a major challenge for the 12 contenders for the Élysée: to beat the recall of their supporters, to seek out the undecided and those tempted by a potentially high abstention.
“Of course” that Emmanuel Macron can lose, said the leader of the majority deputies Christophe Castaner on Sunday on RMC, “it would be a political fault”, an “arrogance”, that “to suggest that an election is folded in advance”.
The last days of the campaign are indeed electrified by a narrowing gap in the polls between Mr. Macron, candidate of the “at the same time” between left and right, and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen (RN), who rides on galloping inflation and puts purchasing power at the heart of its campaign.
During a giant meeting on Saturday with more social overtones, Mr. Macron called for “general mobilization” against “extremism” and “great stunting”. Ms. Le Pen’s solutions “are not funded: she would therefore take back with one hand what she gives with the other”, added government spokesman Gabriel Attal in the JDD.
Faced with the announced 2017 remake, the best-placed left-wing candidate (around 15%) Jean-Luc Mélenchon hopes to get a ticket in the final.
– “We will win” –
To make this hoped-for “remontada” a reality, he gathered some 25,000 people despite the cold on the emblematic Place du Capitole in Toulouse, one of the strongest bastions of “yellow vests” during the 2018/19 crisis. “We are going to win,” chanted the thousands of people as he entered the stage.
From the first minutes, the rebellious leader vilified Emmanuel Macron’s speech the day before: “he said that purchasing power has increased in a historic way, that’s wrong, the first quarter of 2022 is the record for decline in purchasing power for 10 years. And no doubt he has not been at the pump for a long time”.
“He who wanted to give himself airs of left (…), how could he believe that we do not see that he makes fun of the world?”, thundered Mr. Mélenchon.
– “Overturn the table” –
On the right, Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the Republicans, neck and neck with the former far-right polemicist Éric Zemmour (around 10%), tried to remobilize in a meeting in Paris an electorate very courted by his opponents, the extreme right to the candidate Macron.
“We have one week left to convince, to overturn the table,” said the LR candidate, in front of 5,000 supporters, denouncing the “cynical scenario” of Emmanuel Macron who “again wants a face-to-face with the extremes to secure victory in the second round”.
Presenting herself as the only legatee of the right against “forgers”, she repeated that the president-candidate “does not carry a right-wing policy”. And emphasized “the main axes” of his campaign: the sovereign with great firmness on security, and purchasing power with “10% increase in wages”.
The interim president of the RN for his part pleaded on LCI for an “effective vote” by addressing the voters of Valérie Pécresse and Éric Zemmour so that Marine Le Pen can “have the strongest possible momentum from the 1st round for create the conditions for a very large gathering in the second round”.
Last meeting also in Paris for the socialist Anne Hidalgo, at the lowest in the polls, around 2%. “He doesn’t even calculate you,” she told left-wing voters tempted by Emmanuel Macron, inviting them to “return to their family of origin”.
In front of 2,400 supporters, she also warned against the “effective vote” touted by the rebellious leader: “How could a candidate who theorized the end of the left, then who in the local elections fought all the rest of the left, could now represent any hope for the left?”, she asked, believing that “Mélenchon is a dead end”
Yannick Jadot, traveling to Nanterre to meet activists, announced “a five-year term of climate denial”. Nathalie Arthaud (LO) made her most important meeting at the Zénith de Paris, underlining “the derisory aspect of this campaign” while “the situation is getting worse” on the economic and social level.
For his part, Philippe Poutou (NPA) took part in a demonstration against the extreme right in the capital.