Alexandre Chauveau, with AFP 8:45 p.m., February 04, 2022

Criticized even in her camp for her campaign deemed too cold, Valérie Pécresse wanted to play the card of proximity on Friday by going to meet the voters of the Ardennes.

Criticized even in her camp for her campaign deemed too cold, Valérie Pécresse wanted to play the card of proximity on Friday by going to meet the voters of the Ardennes.

"So, how's it going in the Ardennes?"

Arriving shortly before noon in Signy-L'Abbaye, a town of 1,300 inhabitants, the LR candidate methodically pushes the door of the shops to take the temperature of the voters, just over two months before the first round.

Proximity and simplicity

"As long as we work we are happy, but it becomes complicated", launches a customer of the supermarket, taxi driver.

"I saw the price of a full tank, it's more than 100 euros!" Sympathizes Valérie Pécresse.

Displaying proximity and simplicity, the president of the Ile-de-France region listens to everyone, ensuring here "the importance" of retreats, asking there "if the young people come back", under the gray and humid sky.

In the bakery where she buys a "pétrisane", the local baguette, she confides: "I always wondered, as I love bread: what's the secret?".

In the Café du Pont, she lets the owner check the QR code of her vaccination pass on her phone - "it's valid!" - and sips a coffee - "cheers, boss!" -, under the watchful eye of the cameras crammed into the small place.

“We will follow you on TV”, launches, smiling, one of the pensioners seated in front of a half.

"We'll be back one weekend, so I can taste the booze!"

replies the candidate, to whom a client launches a compliment on her physique when she goes out.

"You know how to talk to women! The Ardennes are charming," she replies.

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Pans and boar 

After a round table with farmers and hunters, in a café with walls decorated with a boar's head and copper pans, she went to Charleville-Mézières to talk about purchasing power and held a public meeting in front of around 300 people.

"When we put one euro for city policy, we will put one euro for investment in rural areas," she promised, repeating her plans to liberalize overtime and buy back RTT.

She assured the customers of the café: "we are going to meet the inhabitants", which leaves us to wait for other wanderings.

An imposed figure of candidates in the campaign, this type of exercise has been little used so far by candidate LR, who relies on credibility and has favored thematic trips and round tables with professionals and associations.

To the point of worrying in her own camp: in a stern interview with Le Figaro on Thursday, Rachida Dati called her to "go to the stage of incarnation", warning that the presidential election was not limited to "a sum of proposals".

After a good start to the campaign, in the wake of her inauguration in early December, Valérie Pécresse seems to be marking time in the polls.

An OpinionWay study published on Friday gives it 15% of voting intentions, one point behind Marine Le Pen and two ahead of Éric Zemmour, in ambush.

The two far-right candidates are in the spotlight this weekend with two big meetings scheduled for Saturday.

Does Valérie Pécresse's new proximity method, announced earlier this week, convince?

"She does not come to talk about purchasing power, she comes to do her little campaign in the countryside", launches Daniel Lamblot, retired from the SNCF, who came to pick up his granddaughter after school.

"It's always a good surprise when people come to see you", assures Daniel Durmois, 63, manager of the bar Le Gibergeon, who regrets: "here we are left behind".

In this campaign "a little cafougnaque" (confused, editor's note), he displays very concrete concerns, such as "purchasing power, or that trade restarts".

As for security, which occupies a prominent place in a campaign marked by the weight of the two far-right candidates, "we talk about it a little too much" according to him.

"It avoids talking about the rest," he laments.