While political opponents accuse Emmanuel Macron of entering the race for the Élysée Palace on the sly, the yet-to-be candidate is merely exploiting the privilege of outgoing presidents, traditionally allowed to delay their candidacy.
Like his predecessors, Macron is careful not to wear the costume of a candidate so that he can remain above the fray for as long as permitted. And yet, he does not hesitate to express his “will” to run for another mandate, telling an impatient high school student recently that he will do so “in due course”.
Macron is impatient too. As the question is not “if” but “when”, his supporters and teams have already begun to spread the word that President Macron will soon become “candidate Macron”…
For sure, it is a luxury that only the outgoing presidents can afford. But it is also a way of distinguishing himself from his presidential rivals, who have neither the honour nor the burden of leading France, and who are fighting in the political arena while Macron is working at the helm.
For the opposition, it is becoming increasingly difficult to blame him for this delay, given the health and geopolitical context: “I am first and foremost obsessed that the acute phase of the epidemic and the peak of the current geopolitical crisis are behind us,” Macron confessed in an interview with La Voix du Nord on Tuesday (1 February).
Launching the campaign too early would be tantamount to an early abdication of power, which his competitors would not hesitate to denounce – and rightly so.
Within his La République en Marche party, the trauma of the unsuccessful Paris mayor campaign is still fresh. Bowing to a decision imposed by Emmanuel Macron himself, Agnès Buzyn agreed to leave the health ministry at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 to conquer the capital. She failed. Today, Macron knows to play it safe.
Meanwhile, the president’s opponents get bogged down in fierce confrontations with each other, getting tired and revealing their cards prematurely. First among themselves, occasionally with a minister dispatched to confront them, and regularly with the spokespeople of the presidential party, omnipresent in the media.
But what exactly is the strategy of the presidential camp for the upcoming days?
The recent communication campaigns suggest that the Macronists are trying to make their leader’s candidacy appear as if it is coming from below, as opposed to the criticisms levelled against him throughout his term of office, of being a “Jupiterian” president, solitary and disconnected from the country, who decides everything from Paris.
Social networks have been full of elected officials pledging their support to the non-candidate Macron for the presidential election in the last few days. It is not just a gesture: each candidate needs 500 sponsorships by elected representatives to be eligible to run for president.
Op-eds of mayors and local elected representatives supporting the incumbent president have also multiplied.
After a grassroots, door-to-door operation at the end of 2021, the latest campaign, “Avec Vous” (“With You”), which was not a great success, aimed to underline that Macron’s supporters are interested in the real-life of the French people.
If his strategy proves successful, Macron will appear as the candidate answering a summons from below, from elected representatives and citizens seduced by his project.
Macron has proved himself a resourceful politician, but his main challenge is to choose the right moment in order not to stop a dynamic that has been rather stable, even positive, so far.
He came out of the blue onto the French political scene. However, his original sin remains his own party, still struggling to structure itself due to its short life and unable to make its ideological positioning recognisable.
He can now only hope that this sin does not get in the way of reconquering the Élysée.
Meanwhile, the famous phrase by the 17th-century writer and intellectual Cardinal de Retz sums up well the complexity of the president’s situation:
“It is to one’s own detriment that one ceases to be ambiguous”.
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The Roundup
The European Commission proposed on Wednesday including nuclear and gas power in the bloc’s sustainable finance taxonomy, recognising their contribution to the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal “subject to clear limits and phase-out periods”.
Deterrence and social pressure should play a more significant role in the fight against counterfeits given the economic damage they cause the EU, according to the executive director of the European intellectual property office (EUIPO). Check out this article in our special report Recent developments in the illicit trade of counterfeit goods.
The European Commission is preparing to table a proposal on 30 March that will force companies to substantiate their environmental claims, using an EU-wide methodology that has been in the making for nearly ten years. This article appears in our special report Sustainable products initiative.
The European Commission has presented its second delegated act for the EU’s sustainable finance rules and under certain conditions, nuclear power and gas will be labelled “green”, making German industry happy.
While the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the digitalisation of SMEs in the EU, experts argue that policymakers’ focus should now move to infrastructure and education in order to bridge the remaining digital divide.
Belgium’s data watchdog found that the industry standard for managing user preferences in Europe violates several General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provisions, and it requested advertisers to delete the collected data.
Kazakhstan’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Elvira Azimova, told EURACTIV on Wednesday that her office takes seriously reports that some of those arrested following the protest in early January were tortured and that testimonies were extracted under duress.
Be sure to also check out our Health Brief for a weekly roundup of European healthcare news.
Look out for…
- Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson delivers welcome address at 8th Ministerial meeting of Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) Advisory Council.
- International Partnerships Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen participates in the launch of the 2022 edition of the “Africa’s Development Dynamics”, published by OECD and the African Union.
- Health and Food Safety Commissioner Stella Kyriakides delivers an opening speech via videoconference at the 2022 European Cancer Meeting of the French National Cancer Institute.
Views are the author’s.
[Edited by Alice Taylor/Zoran Radosavljevic]
Source: euractiv.com
