• Schools, security, housing… Emmanuel Macron must present a plan called “Marseille en grand” during a three-day trip.

    He will also speak about ecology at the opening of the World Conservation Congress.

  • The head of state, who has not yet announced his candidacy for the presidential election, thus seizes on themes considered central for the coming campaign.

  • It is difficult for the opposition not to see there, eight months before the election, a political agenda.

After the return to school of most French political formations in recent days, here comes the turn of the Head of State. For his return to the domestic political scene after a rich international sequence marked by the crisis in Afghanistan, Emmanuel Macron is traveling to Marseille for three days from Wednesday. A stay of an unprecedented duration during which he must announce a major plan for the second city of France, in the grip of insecurity and decay. The President of the Republic will make ringing and stumbling announcements in terms of education, transport and security, before opening the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

The opportunity to seize on subjects which will be at the heart of the presidential campaign of 2022. But beware, warns the Elysee, "there is no political will in this trip, except that of responding to needs of the city, faced with economic, social, educational and security emergencies ”.

Truly ?

"A pre-campaign trip at the expense of the French"

“Marseille needs resources, it's a fact, recognizes Sébastien Chenu, spokesperson for the National Rally. But I fear that this is only a pre-campaign trip at the expense of the French. A suspicion shared by Agnès Evren, spokesperson for the Republicans, that the format of Emmanuel Macron's trip, eight months before the first round of the election, leaves little doubt as to his intentions. “The President of the Republic has never been comfortable with the regal - his thing is the economy. He realizes that the right has a boulevard in front of it in this area and tries to seize it. A plan in Marseille, very good, but why now? She asks herself.

“Political motivations? Go tell that to mothers who have lost a child! “, Ton Saïd Ahamada, LREM deputy of Bouches-du-Rhône, in reference to the many settling of scores which sadly punctuated the Marseille news during the year. For several years, the elected official has been campaigning for a major plan in France's second largest city. “It was the Covid-19 pandemic and the health difficulties it caused that delayed the implementation of this plan, not the president's political agenda. Without this, it could have been created a year and a half ago! », Assures the elected official. "The challenge here is to meet the urgent needs of Marseille, in order to make it the capital of the Mediterranean, not to prepare the campaign", abounds Prisca Thevenot, spokesperson for LREM, according to which the "at the same macronian time,"So decried by the opposition", manages to convince Marseille elected officials from all sides.

Reconnect with the popular classes

For the oppositions, the choice of Marseille also denotes a campaign communication.

"The insecurity, the decay of the State and the ghettoization of certain sectors, it is not only in Marseilles, why does the President of the Republic not do the same throughout the territory?

», Quips Agnès Evren (LR).

Large-scale plans, the deputy La France Insoumise Alexis Corbière has known in his territory, the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, "without ever much happening".

So, not to believe in the political motivations behind this displacement of Emmanuel Macron would be "naive", according to him.

On the side of LREM, we do not hide a certain desire of the President of the Republic to reconnect with the popular classes "who realize that the State has held the economy at arm's length", according to Saïd Ahamada. "Abstention is obviously a matter of concern for 2022. If this plan can restore the link between citizens and politics, and encourage them to vote, so much the better", says Prisca Thevenot.

Final proof of the countryside atmosphere that will float in Marseille in the coming days, the surprise trip of Jean-Luc Mélenchon who, according to information from 

20 Minutes, will

tread the soil of the Marseille city at the same time as the Head of State to talk about education.

The LFI presidential candidate and deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône will also meet Emmanuel Macron.

Before a clash in eight months?

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  • Security

  • Election campaign

  • Education

  • Presidential election

  • Marseilles

  • Emmanuel Macron