Europe 1 with AFP 4:40 p.m., March 19, 2022

A contested movement since its creation, the Republican Spring, through the voice of its president Amine El Khatmi, has announced that it supports Emmanuel Macron for the presidential election.

The collective believes that it is the only candidate to be able to "block the far right, while the left is in ruins".

The Printemps Républicain collective, which intends to carry a speech of universalist republican left, criticized by its detractors for its intransigence concerning secularism, gave its support on Saturday to the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election, indicated to the AFP its president Amine El Khatmi.

“During the five-year term that is ending, we have been critical of Emmanuel Macron, especially during his speech at the Collège des Bernardins”, when the president said in 2018 that he wanted to “repair the link between the Church and the State", "but it is clear that there has been an evolution, in particular with the speech of Mureaux and the law against separatism", explained Amine El Khatmi.

The president of the collective reports "a political situation where the far right is over 30% and the left is in ruins", considering "that in responsibility, we believe we have to bring a voice within the presidential majority.

A movement close to Manuel Valls

Long dominated by the figure of its co-founder, the political scientist Laurent Bouvet, who died last December, the Printemps Républicain has been regularly controversial since its birth six years ago, accused of identitarianism, while its supporters have frequently attacked to the left for being, in their view, too conciliatory with Islamism.

The Republican Spring is also reputed to be close to the former socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls, support of Emmanuel Macron.

Its president justified his refusal to support the socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo because of "years of bewilderment and a lack of preparation" of the Socialist Party, while acknowledging that the positioning of the Mayor of Paris is "irreproachable".

The Republican Spring wants to propose legislative candidates

The satisfaction also applies to the communist Fabien Roussel or the LR candidate Valérie Pécresse, for whom the collective had called to vote in the regional elections last year, "but the interest of a presidential election is to win, to change the lives of citizens," said Amine.

El Khatmi.

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The president of the Republican Spring also felt that "the role of itchy hair that we have had for six years had reached its limits".

"We will have a vocation to propose candidates for the legislative elections, we will see under what conditions this will be discussed in the presidential majority", he added.