The day after a river press conference, the president-candidate was in Pau to provide after-sales service for a program that looks like a "mid-term" which promises 15 billion euros in tax cuts and targets the "full employment" within five years.

Thursday, the great presidential favorite had also denounced the projects of other candidates who highlight "the withdrawal, the return to a form of nostalgia, sometimes moreover the nostalgia of what has never been", alluding barely veiled to far-right candidate Eric Zemmour.

While he imposes both his tempo and his strong agenda from his status as head of state in the midst of the war in Ukraine, his opponents seem confined to being in permanent reactivity and reduced to criticizing the absence of democratic debate.

Mr. Macron refuses to debate directly with them and has so far only scheduled one meeting, on April 2 in Paris.

In the Pécresse camp, he is accused of plundering the ideas of the right.

On the left, we denounce his "social mistreatment" like the leader of LFI Jean-Luc Mélenchon who castigates "a policy dated from the Roaring Twenties of liberalism".

"Five years after the start of Emmanuel Macron's political commitment, some have still not understood what overtaking was," replied Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie on Public Senate on Friday.

Valérie Pécresse, candidate for the presidential election of the Republicans, in Nîmes, March 17, 2022 Pascal GUYOT AFP

"I don't care, royally, totally, + presidentially +. If they don't know how to differentiate themselves from the project that I am carrying, what have they been doing in this mess?", the candidate had replied on Thursday.

"Low legitimacy"

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal added to BFMTV / RMC by stressing that "it's been five years that we hear people say + it's a right-wing policy etc. +, I don't think for a second that it is a debate that interests the French".

For Marine Le Pen, who is in second position in the polls and hopes for a 2017 remake, "we had the feeling that Emmanuel Macron was getting rid of a chore".

The candidate of the National Rally also stigmatizes a president who for five years "has done a technician's management, entrusted to technicians".

The communist candidate Fabien Roussel warned him against the risk that a minimal campaign would lead to high abstention and low legitimacy in the event of re-election.

"Five years of presidency of the Republic cannot be summarized in four hours of press conference; it would be like + I give you my program in four hours, business settled +", he said on franceinfo.

Fabien Roussel, during the Grand Oral of presidential candidates on health and autonomy organized by the French Hospital Federation (FHF), in Paris on March 17, 2022 EMMANUEL DUNAND AFP

This illegitimate trial, for lack of a real campaign, was brandished by several opposition figures, including President LR of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, drawing the wrath of Mr. Macron declaring Thursday: "a President of the Senate should not not say that".

According to an Ipsos/Sopra Steria poll published on Friday, Emmanuel Macron is credited with 29% of voting intentions in the first round on April 10, well ahead of Marine Le Pen, at 16%.

Behind, Eric Zemmour is stable at 13%, as is the radical left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 12%.

Pécresse in difficulty

This survey confirms the erosion of Valérie Pécresse, at 10.5%, i.e. in 5th place.

The LR candidate was traveling to La Grande-Motte and Toulouse on Friday where she was to hold a meeting in the evening.

Ms. Pécresse, who fears having her voters looted for the benefit of Mr. Macron, denounces a bad copy-paste of her ideas and wants to instil the idea of ​​being the only one capable of beating the Head of State in the second round. .

But his campaign is slipping strongly and rumors of Nicolas Sarkozy's support for Emmanuel Macron are resurfacing, with the risk that the outgoing president will appear as the "useful vote" on the right.

For his part, the far-right candidate Eric Zemmour was counting on a meeting in Metz to give a boost to a campaign that gives the air of hesitation.

Thursday evening, he clashed with the ecologist Yannick Jadot who came to respond to him during a debate on France 2. The debate quickly turned into a rat race between accusations of "collaborator of Islamo-leftists" against heir to "Pétain/Hitler in Montoire".

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© 2022 AFP