Not 100 days, not a month, not even 24 hours. President of France, Emmanuel MacronStarted second term without traditional grace period. Following his re-election on April 24, France entered a strange political period marked by lethargy and a succession of debates. Although he started as a favourite, the centrist leader faces some challenges from next week. legislative elections in which he could lose an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
Macron promised a “complete renewal” during his presidential campaign. Despite this, this month and one and a half months of the second semester were mostly the same with signs of exhaustion. The only significant announcement came with the appointment of new prime minister Elisabeth Borne and other ministers. These gave continuity messagecontrary to the expectations created.
The centrist leader bets: same strategy as the presidency, managed to silence the debate and postponed his entry into the campaign until the last moment. After a lethargic May, Macronist troops have stepped up their criticism of the new opposition leader in recent days –ultra Le Pen completely lost—: Jean-Luc Mélenchon at the head of a brand new unitary coalition of the left. Will this political katenaccio be successful for Macron again? Will low turnout – more votes in France’s presidential election than in the legislative elections – be the key to demobilizing young voters of the left? Or could it be a surprise?
succession of arguments
According to the latest polls, Macron is not expected to be rosy in the June 12 and 19 elections. A recent study by the Cluster 17 institute predicts that the New People’s Union (left) will be the party with the most votes in the first round with 31%, ahead of the Together coalition with 27% (president). Another from Ifop predicts that the macronists will break through in the runoff and get the largest parliamentary group (between 310 and 270 MPs), while the gauche will stay at 210-170. But alliance with the president can be left without a simple majority — at least 289 seats — which will complicate the future of the president’s second term.
As in physics, there is no vacuum in politics. The absence of government announcements was compensated by the successive debates. First, macronism was struck in mid-May by the candidacy of Jérôme Peyrat, a deputy close to the president. Convicted of “spousal violence”. Eventually, she stopped appearing in the face of media pressure.
Then the case of Damien Abad, the new Minister of Addiction and Solidarity, broke out. According to Digital Mediapart, the former head of the Republican parliamentary group (partners of the PP in France) is accused of raping two women. Abad, who has arthrogryposis complaint in both legs, claims his disability prevented him from committing a crime sexual assaults and refused to resign For these events that occurred between 2010 and 2011 and do not require its attribution. Despite being aware of these serious accusations, Macron decided to appoint him as minister. This strengthened the president’s reputation for being somewhat lax in the face of sexual violence accusations. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is also being investigated for such allegations.
Champions League final debacle
“It’s harmful. Not many people talk about it with me during the campaign, but that’s not the image we want to portray,” complained a macronist MP in his statements to the newspaper Libération about the Abad case. When this issue seemed to blunt, another controversy arose: chaotic end Champions on the outskirts of Paris. France’s international image has been tarnished not only by the organizational fiasco, but also by robberies, crowds of people, infiltration by supporters, delays of more than half an hour, and police gassing fans. Added to this was Darmanin’s controversial communications management, which was minimally self-critical and provided controversial data saying “(half of the tickets from Liverpool) were wrong”.
“The state is collapsing before our eyes. (…) They cannot even guarantee the calm of a football match,” Mélenchon assured at the main rally of the unitary left coalition in Paris on Wednesday, citing “inaction” as a macronist example. mismanagement. “climate”, difficulties in schools and public health, or rising poverty due to inflation – the closure of many emergency services is a hot topic in France.
Mélenchon is proving to be a more formidable contender for president. Not only because it is less scary than Le Pen, but also because it proposes a program of social transformation. In its place, Macron doesn’t seem to have many ideas before this moment of historical bifurcation.