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It was the last political meeting of France 2 before the first round of the presidential election. While indecision still affects the French as much five days before the start of the ballot, half of the official candidates for the supreme magistracy were represented this evening on the Élysée 2022 plateau (the other half having been invited last week) . Valérie Pécresse, Anne Hidalgo, Éric Zemmour, Yannick Jadot and Philippe Poutou were present, while Emmanuel Macron refused the invitation of the Two. Here’s what to remember.
Poutou refuses to be in the same room as the others
The candidate of the New Anti-Capitalist Party, the first to pass on the Élysée plateau in 2022, is off to a strong start. Refusing to appear in the same room as Éric Zemmour and Valérie Pécresse, as he made it known on Twitter before the start of the show, Philippe Poutou immediately attacked France 2 on the absence of the head of the State. “Emmanuel Macron does not come and it does not appear at all. He made it clear that he did not want to argue. He didn’t even want to meet me. It’s spectacular to campaign like that, what is this bogus campaign? “, he curses. Before questioning ironically: “Isn’t he the one who wants to abolish the TV license fee? He would not have a problem with the public service Emmanuel Macron? »
With a smile, Philippe Poutou will not recognize “any error” made during this presidential campaign and will defend, when he is questioned about the violence which followed the death of Yvan Colonna in Corsica, “the legitimate violence” of the French people faced with the oppression of power. Credited with 1% of voting intentions in the polls, however, he has no illusions and concedes: “We don’t believe it”. While the only perspective emerging on Sunday would be, according to him, “Macron or the far right”, the candidate insists on the need for the radical left to “remobilise”. While Éric Zemmour is called upon to succeed him on the set of the show, the candidate concludes in a projection towards him: “Who that? The racist, fascist accused of sexual assault? »
For Zemmour, only two candidates campaigned
The candidate of “Reconquest! judges that only two candidates in the presidential election have really campaigned and succeeded in imposing their “political dynamics”, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) and himself. “I gathered a lot of people behind me, I created a party which brought together 400,000 people in four months”, he congratulates himself, before mocking his rival from the National Rally which he believes would limit his campaign President to take “selfies with veiled women”. One regret, however, for the former polemicist, not having talked enough about his project to defend values at school.
Asked about the “Macron assassin” heard during his meeting at the Trocadéro last weekend, Éric Zemmour does not support, but says “understand” his sympathizers: “The role of the State is to protect its people, or Emmanuel Macron does not protect his people against the incessant attacks, the attacks, ”he judged. The former polemicist took advantage of his airtime to denounce the “general omerta” of the media and politicians on the death of Jérémy Cohen, a 31-year-old young man who died knocked down by a tram while trying to flee a a group of young people in Bobigny. “There was obviously a desire for justice and the media to conceal this”, judged Éric Zemmour, for whom this case illustrates “what the French are experiencing today”.
Credited with 10% of voting intentions in the polls, he swears that he “will change the political landscape” in the event of qualification in the second round, since people from the Republicans as well as from the National Rally would be ready to join him. In the event of defeat, he announces half-wordly that he will be a candidate in the legislative elections: “I will not abandon the people who trust me. »
Jadot attacks Macron, candidate for “climate inaction”
Yannick Jadot devoted most of his first intervention on Élysée 2022 to criticizing the mandate of Emmanuel Macron and his action internationally, in particular vis-à-vis Vladimir Poutine. “Emmanuel Macron is the candidate for climate inaction,” he denounced. “He still said that Russian gas was green energy and had the audacity to ask for subsidies.” The EELV candidate, credited with 5.5% in the polls, also judges that the outgoing president has “staged” himself and has shown too much closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he is familiar with, even as Ukraine is invaded by the Russian army.
His regret during this campaign? “I wanted to carry the theme of youth and I find that it has not been put forward enough,” concedes Yannick Jadot. However, he explains that he has “great pride for this campaign” and for its activists, who have shown the constancy of their ideas while the war is shaking Europe, that the pandemic “has shown the vulnerability of our economies”, and that a new IPCC report gives humanity 3 years to keep a planet “livable”. “The future of humanity is at stake”, he hammered later.
He points to the need to provide “answers, solutions” to the French, both in terms of ecology and purchasing power, and recalls that the green vote is a vote of conviction, credibility, construction : “When the French voted environmentalist in the European elections, the European agenda was devoted to the climate, it’s called the Green Deal” Asked about France’s dependence on Russian gas, the candidate considers that France can pass, and asks: “Faced with these atrocities. Can’t we mobilize – as for vaccines – all the living forces to save 10% of our gas? »
Valérie Pécresse “better in crises”
The Republican candidate, currently credited with 8% of voting intentions in the polls, begins by denouncing the campaign strategy of Emmanuel Macron, who uses, according to her, “the extremes to guarantee his re-election” and has “modeled his ideas (understand his program)” on his own. In front of Léa Salamé, she recognizes a failed first meeting at the Zénith de Paris. “This meeting made me stumble. He was probably too bombastic, masculine. But five days later there was Le Canet, where I walk around the room doing a capella what I have in my gut, what I believe in, ”defends Valérie Pécresse.
She claims to have learned over the course of the campaign that she had in her “the strength” necessary to preside over the country, because “France deserves better”. “When you are a real politician, you cannot doubt. There will be moments of great crisis (…). I am better in crises, ”assures the former Minister of Higher Education. Asked about her “lack of fantasy”, Valérie Pécresse is not worried about it and puts on the costume of the iron lady again (or “doing”, as she likes to write it): “Angela Merkel and Margaret Thatcher weren’t fancy. They stood up to the street, they waged war, they carried out reforms. Me it’s serious, it’s funded. Poaching does not sum up politics. »
No campaign error for Anne Hidalgo
“Being president is not Star Academy. It is to have an ambition for the country. It means being in touch with history, that of my political family (…). It’s work, a lot of work. It’s not entertainment, it’s not a show, ”defends Anne Hidalgo. Although she is only credited with a starving 2% score in the polls, the Socialist Party candidate “does not think she made a mistake” during this political campaign and prefers to value “the collective”, the fabric of local elected officials from his party, his “French team of mayors”.
On the break-up of her political family, Anne Hidalgo considers that it is above all the fault of Emmanuel Macron, who made the French believe “that there was something of the order of the left” in his program in 2017, and which ultimately reserved for them only measures of “incredible social violence”, like its project to reform the legal retirement age and the RSA. She recalls that if elected, she would begin by restoring the hardship criteria removed by the outgoing president to put “social justice” back at the heart of state policy.
Questioned subsequently about her rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is ahead of her by more than 10 points in the polls, Anne Hidalgo considers that her supposed complacency vis-à-vis Vladimir Poutine and her position on the exit from the integrated command of the NATO should be prohibitive for the French. “We remember the images where he says that the Republic is him (…). It does not recognize the rule of law. Someone who wants to preside over the country and has this type of behavior is a dead end,” she said. Wasn’t his anti-car policy in Paris a hindrance in his campaign? “No”, replies the mayor of Paris point-blank. “I am very happy to be recognized, in particular by the UN, for my climate action”, she further supported.