Macron: a Tour de France for what?
Audio 02:45
French President Emmanuel Macron.
© Christophe Ena / AP
By: Valérie Gas Follow
6 mins
Once is not customary, Emmanuel Macron sets out to conquer the French.
Since the start of deconfinement, the Head of State has launched a series of trips to the regions.
He was in the Lot this week and he plans to tour France by the end of July.
What is Emmanuel Macron looking for?
Publicity
To hear one of the president's relatives, all this would not be
"very conceptualized, Emmanuel Macron wants to go meet people, see how it goes, watch over the French. He says I want to go there or there
”and he“
adores Saint-Cirq-Lapopie
”, this small village in the Lot where he visited this week, explains this interlocutor as if to ensure that the president is not accused of monopolize the media space in the middle of the regional countryside.
Emmanuel Macron, we know, loves to go "
in contact
", "to
take the pulse of the French
", he wants once again to try to appear as a president close to the people:
"The Covid has transformed him, it allowed him to split the armor
”, wants to believe a deputy.
The timing is right.
A walker speaks of a "
happy convalescence
" in the country after difficult months of health constraints.
And at the Elysee, it is explained that the president "
wants to support his fellow citizens in the return to life
".
The Head of State is therefore deconfined in his own way.
But what is at stake is the last year of the five-year term.
Emmanuel Macron hopes to assess the state of mind of the French and therefore his political room for maneuver to continue reform.
Is Emmanuel Macron in the countryside?
Officially no, but in fact, it looks like it. Moreover, among its supporters, some recognize it: this Tour de France is a warming-up. It should allow Emmanuel Macron to change his image, to go from “
Jupiterian to Pompidolian
” in other words to show that he is
“human, attentive
” and above all to make “
the pedagogy of the France of tomorrow
”. In 2017, Emmanuel Macron launched his campaign with the big march. In 2018, he organized a memorial tour. After the “yellow vests”, he came out of the crisis with the great debate. It's a little always the same recipe revisited with Tour de France sauce even if a candidate for the regional ones explains that the objective is different: "
The big debate was a shrink streak.
We are no longer there, now it is a question of saying where we are going together
”.
In other words, to prepare a candidacy while his main opponent, Marine Le Pen, is already in the campaign for 2022.
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Emmanuel Macron
Presidential France 2022