Nearly two months before the first round, the campaign for the presidential election is still not taking off.
A large part of the population is not interested in it, while the candidates are struggling to make their mark in the debate.
Societal issues – such as inequalities, housing or climate change – remain largely inaudible despite being the main concerns of voters.
When the most impactful expressions of a campaign are those that are ironic about the emptiness of said campaign, there is something wrong.
We are there, for the moment, with this presidential 2022, which is definitely struggling to take off.
"A campaign of the living dead," attacked government spokesman Gabriel Attal in
Le Parisien
.
“A Tefal campaign”, observed the deputy general manager of Ipsos, Brice Teinturier, on France Inter.
On which the themes slip and end up very quickly in the sink.
At this stage of the campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy had already impressed on the minds of the French his "work more to earn more" in 2007, François Hollande targeted as an adversary "finance" in 2012 and Emmanuel Macron, the certainty that he shared a big "projeeeeeet" with voters in 2017. Nothing this time, while the first round of voting is just two months away.
“The explanation is first of all the Covid-19, which has been cannibalizing public space for two years, judge Bruno Cautrès, researcher at CNRS and Cevipof.
Not just the fact of talking about it, but also its legacy on our mentalities, the psychology of voters, the general feeling of both weariness and confusion in the country.
»
According to the specialist in political behavior and attitudes, the pandemic has also prevented candidacies from really taking off by making it impossible to organize large meetings, essential demonstrations of force to trigger a dynamic.
Certainly.
The Covid-19 does not help, the teams of the candidates have already explained it to us.
But it shouldn't be blamed on him, either.
This week, the Abbé-Pierre Foundation presented its annual report on poor housing.
A central subject, in connection with health, access to employment or education, and which represents more than 20% of household expenditure, according to INSEE.
The president of the Foundation, Laurent Desmard, was very upset.
“I don't understand that the candidates are stubborn in subjects like immigration or security, whereas if we had a real housing policy, we would reduce a good number of inequalities, he confided to us.
The candidates come out with terrible things, enough is enough!
We've had enough.
»
#REML2022
The @Abbe_Pierre Foundation publishes "The State of #MalHousing in 🇫🇷 2022".
➡️Health crisis and housing crisis: breathless households
➡️Logement, poor relation of the quinquennium
➡️The Foundation's proposals
👉 https://t.co/7fqyh7HxwZ pic.twitter.com/EnZZIN9ok7
– FondationAbbéPierre (@Abbe_Pierre) February 2, 2022
The general delegate of the foundation, Christophe Robert, pointed to the "very technical" side of the subject, which can put off the general public and the candidates.
Christiane Taubira will remember it, she who found herself paralyzed during the debates organized in the afternoon by a remark on the RSA and the poverty line.
A sequence that could hurt him very badly, but which above all illustrates the evils of this campaign.
Because it was infinitely more taken up and commented on than all the concrete proposals made by the four other left-wing candidates present that day (Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot and Fabien Roussel).
“A real risk for democracy”
"The gap has never been so wide between the concerns of the French - purchasing power, health and climate change - and the political debate as it is taken up in the media and on social networks, deplores Anne Bringault, program coordinator at the Climate Action Network.
We focus on small sentences, controversies, questions of people.
This is worrying, a real risk for democracy.
Difficult to deny it, even if newspapers, radios and television channels give way to substantive debates, with special notebooks or innovative formats linked to the presidential election.
“Unfortunately, these are no longer sources of information for many people,” notes the environmental expert.
Alain Bazot, president of UFC-Que Choisir, also has a small grudge against the media.
He salutes “the serious programs that exist”, but is in despair to see that consumer defense associations are not invited.
“We deal with subjects of daily life, but the speakers and angles of approach suggest that social subjects are not political, that they cannot participate in the reflections in a presidential campaign, he regrets.
While the main question for choosing a president still remains: "In what society does he want to take us?"
»
Blame it on the media or the parties?
The association leader takes the example of the explosion in the price of energy, which appeared in the campaign in January. “The subject settled exclusively from the angle of income, he notes. Candidates are questioned on the Smic, the minimum old age, etc. The State promotes its energy vouchers. It's amazing, because purchasing power walks on two legs: what I earn and what I spend. No one talks about this second component, which corresponds to prices. How is it that prices slip, beyond cyclical inflation? We would have proposals to make, which are political. But they are not perceived as such. »
For Bruno Cautrès, it is the political parties that are responsible for the difficulty in having significant proposals heard.
More than the candidates themselves, for that matter.
According to him, the right has been able to bring out the issues of immigration, security and borders because it has prepared to position itself on the record of Emmanuel Macron.
What the left has not done on its favorite subjects – the social, the climate, living (better) together.
"It's not a question of people but a structural problem, a lack of approach built up over several years to present the French when the time comes with a real alternative, considers the researcher.
It's the same difference between a student who works regularly and another who is content to revise frantically the day before the exam.
»
Having said that, should we take refuge under the duvet while waiting for the first round, or can we still hope for a spark?
Bruno Cautrès is pessimistic, even if the announced entry into the campaign of Emmanuel Macron could revive the machine.
"When he puts his report and his proposals on the table, it will allow all the other candidates to attack him, contradict him, and explain to us what they would do," he believes.
The associations, they do not disarm.
A collective for the defense of people with disabilities launched a national campaign a few days ago to “alert on the shortcomings of the State”.
The UFC-Que Choisir will very soon propose solutions to regulate certain markets where prices are drifting “without it costing the State a penny”.
The Climate Action Network is counting a lot on the two publications of the IPCC scheduled for February 28 and April 4, as well as on the popular mobilization of March 12, to explode "the enormous expectation of the French" on the subject.
Our file on the presidential
“We never get discouraged, breathes Christophe Robert, of the Abbé-Pierre Foundation.
We are going to put all our energy into bringing this theme of housing to the fore.
» After a whole day spent listening to talk about unsanitary habitats, idle youth and emergency accommodation with families who live with four in a hotel room, it is difficult not to have a fundamental issue.
And not to regret debates that are not always up to par.
“Bringing the candidates causes a lot of preparation work for the campaign teams, slips the general delegate.
This requires refining the proposals, the philosophy of each person's action.
And if they worked on the subject…” He leaves his sentence hanging.
We end it for him: it's not to drop him as soon as the event is over.
Well, normally.
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