Editorial of the “World”. The presidential campaign is launched. The most obvious signal is the content of Emmanuel Macron’s television address Tuesday, November 9, the ninth since the beginning of the health crisis.
His pretext was to stem the fifth epidemic wave that the World Health Organization has just pointed in Europe, but strictly health measures have only occupied a small part of the intervention. The call to be vaccinated in the direction of those who have not yet done so, the pressurization of seniors so that they receive a booster dose on pain of losing their safety, the extension, in December, From the third injection to 50-64 years have all the less surprised that they comply with the choices made since July. It is always a question of building on vaccination by focusing on liability rather than coercion.
What struck, on the other hand, in the presidential intervention, it is the time spent praising the balance sheet, and in the first place the economic recovery and the decline of unemployment. Then, the announcement of a revival of the nuclear program accompanied by a vigorous ODE at work, erected pivotally from the development model for the coming years.
The president is always president but, for the first time, he also shows his appetizer for the electoral fight. At five months of the presidential election, the political theater was animated at the point of coming to move it.
The first message of the almost-candidate aims to counter the idea of a possible starch related at the end of the quinquennate and the epidemic recovery. The abandonment of the pension reform was actually active, but immediately countered by the affirmation that the subject would be on the agenda of the next few months around three strong axes: work more, remove special schemes, guarantee a Minimum pension of 1,000 euros per month.
A more consideration reality
The full employment theme has been smoked, how to extend what has already been done, with a broad mention to the reform of unemployment insurance, assumed including in its most polemical aspects, those affecting at the periods of compensation. The revival of nuclear power, parallel to the development of renewable energies, has been justified by the need to amplify the fight against global warming. Emmanuel Macron as if the presidential election of April and next May was just a simple formality between two mandates.
The reality is however more complex, because a large part of its intervention can also be read as the will to stifle the republican right when five LR candidates are trying to decide and avoid the explosion From their party, because of the pressure exerted by Eric Zemmour. The head of state took over three of their battle horses: nuclear power, work, the fight against the assistant, before presenting itself as the herald of the European camp and the leader of the antideclinists.
As long as all candidates will not be known, Emmanuel Macron has no interest in officially entering the campaign. The calendar serves it, since France will take in January 2022 the Presidency of the European Union, which will still value its position as head of state. The whole question is how long its competitors and voters will accept it benefits from what it tries to erect in a dominant position. The question is not new. She landed for each outgoing president, candidate for her re-election.