French press review

In the spotlight: Macron fishing for leftist votes

Audio 04:20

Emmanuel Macron during his visit to Carvin on April 11, 2022. AP - Benoit Tessier

By: Frédéric Couteau Follow

4 mins

Advertisement

Macron on coal

”, launches

Liberation

on the front page.

No time to waste

.

(…)

If the Head of State came out on top on Sunday with 27.8%, his re-election is far from certain.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen potentially benefits from more automatic vote reserves than Emmanuel Macron

(…).

Failing to seek out these left-wing voters with their teeth by making a 180-degree programmatic turn, it was for the macronie yesterday, during a trip to Hauts-de-France, working land obviously not chosen by chance, to multiply

"signs" (in the direction of the 22% of voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon).

With keywords like

: "youth", "social", "ecology", "women's rights"…

But the slope of this seduction operation is steep,

points out

Liberation again.

Despite calls to vote Emmanuel Macron which are multiplying on the left, the head of state's campaign strategists know that insisting on the measures already taken or sending a few

new "signs" 

will not be enough to convince the most reluctant to return an Emmanuel Macron ballot to the ballot box like five years ago, or those who would be tempted to take refuge in abstention which would benefit the far-right candidate

.

»

To convince…

On the move yesterday in the North and today in Alsace, Emmanuel Macron has finally entered the campaign.

It was high time

,” exclaimed

Les Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace

.

And "

if he wants to repel the attacks of his opponent on April 24, he cannot be content to apply the same recipe as in 2017. He can no longer be taken at his word, so he will have to give pledges, to commit.

Convince that he understood the despair of the French, that he heard the anger, in short that he sincerely changed.

Because one thing is certain,

concludes the Alsatian daily,

Marine Le Pen has not changed.

»

Historical responsibility

The daily

Le Monde

is clearly on its side: "

the election of Marine Le Pen as President of the Republic would constitute an attack on the rule of law, a regression in taking into account the climate catastrophe, a revision of our alliances outside at the worst time, while the atrocious war imposed by Vladimir Putin on Ukraine completes to reveal the true nature of a regime with which the candidate has been so complacent.

Logically,

continues Le Monde,

the only effective way to work for his defeat is to call for a vote for Emmanuel Macron.

This places the outgoing president facing a historic responsibility: succeeding in a fortnight in stemming a danger that the five-year term that is ending has been – by his own admission – powerless to reverse.

»

Restore the democratic exercise

For

Le Figaro

, even if Macron wins, he will have to rebuild on a field of ruin... "

If the polls are true, Emmanuel Macron's victory leaves little doubt,

" notes the right-wing daily.

But the devastated political landscape in which he could begin his second term is of great concern.

The frustration born of the feeling of the impossible alternation is likely to harden a little more the tension which crosses our country.

The temptation will be great, in this sociological partition, to awaken, as Tocqueville said,

"the class-to-class war, of those who have nothing against those who have".

The Head of State has understood this, promising new forms of government.

In truth, it is the whole exercise of democracy that will urgently need to be restored.

»

Beware of “

demagogic monsters

”!

Indeed, adds

La Charente Libre

, our “

breathless political system is approaching election after election from the democratic abyss.

Political France is communitarized like Paris and the French desert.

As a symbol of the distance between citizens and the decisions that concern them.

As the symbol of an old world which is going away

(that of parties incapable of renewing themselves, of working, of learning from past mistakes) in the

face of a new world in the process of imposing itself

(that of the three cultural blocs that have arrived leading on Sunday).

Between these two worlds called to succeed each other,

warns La Charente Libre,

it is the moment when the historical fault lines, the political torments, the demagogic monsters arise.

Here we are.

»

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