Marine Le Pen is convinced that the demonization of the National Rally (RN) by her competitors no longer works. The French “don’t believe in werewolves anymore”estimated Wednesday April 6 the far-right presidential candidate, target of attacks by Emmanuel Macron the day before in Brittany.
“The French are not children, they no longer believe in werewolves. The government must stop treating them like children (…) and consider them adults”, said Wednesday on Europe 1 the candidate of the RN, who is progressing in the polls. Marine Le Pen also said to herself “tired of responding to this lack of argument” on his project, “to these anathemas, these insults, and the French are tired of hearing them”.
Proximity to Putin
Campaigning in Finistère, the candidate president called on the French on Tuesday to be “unfailingly European”while denouncing “harmful and deadly projects” candidates for the Elysée who want “turn your back on Europe”. If Marine Le Pen no longer wants to leave the European Union, nor the euro, she wants the primacy of French law over European law, which for some lawyers is equivalent to a de facto “Frexit”.
The Head of State had also mocked the will of Mme Le Pen to question free movement in the European Union and denounced his idea of re-establishing border controls on products. “The same people who tell you ‘with me, you will be better protected'” will lead “the greatest measure of price increase on any imported product”had warned Mr. Macron.
Emmanuel Macron had finally noted the closeness of Marine Le Pen with Vladimir Poutine. defending himself from everything “complacency” with the Russian President, he launched to the press: “It’s not my place to look for complacency with Mr. Putin, it’s not my place to look for funding from Russia. It is with other candidates. » An allusion to the fact that the far-right leader was received by the head of the Kremlin in 2017, while her party continues to repay a loan of around 9 million euros to a Russian creditor, contracted in 2014.
An argument taken up by Gabriel Attal in an interview with L’Obs and published on Wednesday. “While war is upon us and we discover mass graves on European soil, I believe that the French will not want to entrust the country, its place in the world, its diplomacy and its army, to a candidate or a candidate pro-Putin and opposed to the European Union”said the government spokesman and close to Emmanuel Macron. “She hasn’t changed since 2014, when she said the annexation of Crimea was not illegal. She will follow Putin to the end”insists Mr. Attal again.
Image smoothed, immigration project unchanged
In the event of a Macron-Le Pen duel, the gap is reduced in our ninth wave of the survey carried out by Ipsos-Sopra Steria with Cevipof and the Jean Jaurès Foundation for The world. The candidate of the Rassemblement national collects 46% of the voting intentions (margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 points). That is an increase of three points compared to the end of March. She would benefit from a reserve of voices in the electorate of Eric Zemmour, who would refer massively to her. It would also have reports estimated at 21% among the voters of Mr. Mélenchon, and 25% among those of Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the party Les Républicains (LR).
Strongly weakened in the fall of 2021 because of the emergence of Mr. Zemmour, who took part of his electorate from him, Marine Le Pen took the opportunity to give another identity to his campaign. She focused on economic and social themes, relegating immigration, Islam and insecurity to the background.
In view of the presidential election, the candidate has smoothed her image and watered down certain proposals, without changing her project on immigration, planning to do this to include “national priority” in the Constitution as well as the primacy of French law over international law.
To project charges “totalitarian”she replied that Emmanuel Macron’s mandate had “was an authoritarian mandate, where violence followed one another, repression with regard to demonstrations. When he was not faced with crises, he created them himself, this was the case with the “yellow vests””. And she took the opportunity to lament on Wednesday that“there has never been a showdown with the European Union” for “defend the interests of France”.