"Macron's declaration of candidacy is a non-event"

• Emmanuel Macron declared himself a presidential candidate on Thursday evening in a letter to the French published in the regional daily press.

• Focused on the war in Ukraine, the head of state finally embarked on the campaign, 38 days from the first round.

• We talk about it with Jérôme Sainte-Marie, pollster and political scientist, president of the Pollingvox institute.

End of suspense.

Emmanuel Macron is officially a presidential candidate for 2022. The outgoing President of the Republic announced it in a "Letter to the French", published this Thursday evening on regional daily press sites.

“I seek your confidence for a new term of office as President of the Republic”, writes the one who is “candidate to defend our values ​​that the disruptions of the world threaten”.

Monopolized by the management of the health crisis and then the war in Ukraine, the head of state finally embarked on the campaign 38 days before the first round.

"I will not be able to campaign as I would have liked because of the context", recognizes Emmanuel Macron.

Is this late application an appropriate choice?

We discuss it with Jérôme Sainte-Marie, pollster and political scientist, president of the Pollingvox Institute.

Emmanuel Macron declares his candidacy this Thursday in a letter to the French in the regional press.

What political message can we draw from this?

The President of the Republic wishes to send a message of appeasement.

The choice of the daily press (PQR) shows that he refuses to appear as the president of the metropolises, of the winners of globalization but also addresses the France of the peripheries.

The PQR is a press that remains widely read, with which we reach a lot of people.

The letter shows that he chooses simplicity and refuses to make his candidacy something too formal, as a statement from the Elysée would be.

It evokes several precedents, in particular the candidacy of Jacques Chirac in 1994 in

and François Mitterrand's "Letter to all French people" in 1988 for his re-election [Nicolas Sarkozy will also do so in 2012].

Emmanuel Macron does not want to be confined to the elite bloc, to this winning France.

He was very offensive and optimistic in 2017. This time, he wants to embody the unity, in a country that is also more fragmented and more worried.

By declaring himself a few hours before the fateful date, does he want to show that he is stepping over this stage of candidacy?

Being an outgoing president, outside the cohabitation period, is never easy.

You have a track record and the wear and tear of power.

You can also be brutally arrested by French people while traveling.

It is a difficult position, especially since Emmanuel Macron has plans for the transformation of France, which are not necessarily in the majority in public opinion and can cause new concerns.

When you are out, you therefore want to have the shortest possible campaign, especially since you are also concentrating the shots of all the opposition.

We have also clearly seen that, as long as the outgoing president was not a candidate, the opposition clashed with each other, within the left, as well as within the right and the nationalist movement.

These sometimes very tough internal clashes weaken them and also make the conditions for a possible rapprochement for the second round more difficult.

This timing is therefore not an innovation for an outgoing president.

Mitterrand declared himself 33 days before the first round in 1988, and General de Gaulle only 31 in 1965.

On the day of his candidacy, Emmanuel Macron was still fully focused on the situation in Ukraine.

Is this problematic for the presidential campaign?

The campaign was first made invisible by the Covid, then now by the war in Ukraine.

This is problematic, because these two major events mean that the great French democratic meeting risks being amputated from a whole series of debates, however useful, for the people to decide their destiny.

But if the criticisms around the instrumentalization of the management of the health crisis can be heard in public opinion, no one can blame the president for having to manage the Ukrainian crisis.

It imposes itself on us and requires a significant degree of seriousness.

Can it benefit the presidential candidate?

Faced with the war, some French people are in a state of amazement and will not particularly want to change presidents.

Especially since, if Emmanuel Macron is not seen as a unifier or close to people in opinion polls, he is recognized for defending national interests well.

This inevitably gives him a considerable advantage.

Can this candidacy upset the campaign?

The declaration of candidacy could have been a difficult moment for him, in which he would have concentrated all the attacks of his opponents.

But given the circumstances, with the war in Ukraine, it's a non-event in this campaign.

Everyone expected it, the media like the French.

With this letter, he does not do too much.

He's just doing that, sort of sorting out his situation.

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• The Republic on the March (LREM)

• Elections

• Presidential election 2022

• Emmanuel Macron

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