"I like mud."

The candidate of the National Rally had to circumvent several puddles by visiting the cereal farm of Thierry and Dominique Blanc, in Soucy, worried about the increase in the price of fertilizers or seeds.

Beyond the increase in the prices of gas, fuel oil, electricity or fuels, amplified by the war in Ukraine, "there is another dark cloud which is coming over the heads of the French and which will be the 'food price inflation', warns Marine Le Pen, who has made purchasing power a central theme of her campaign.

Emmanuel Macron mentioned a food check, but "where, when, for whom, by how much?"

asks the candidate.

"Anticipation is fundamental. For the moment we tinker," she slices.

Faced with this "wall of inflation", "the State must provide the answers", according to her, such as "the insecurity which rots the existence of our compatriots on a daily basis" or the "problems of immigration" .

"At the end of the system"

She rolls out her proposals for a reduction in VAT or a basket of 100 basic necessities exempt from VAT, and insists on a "structural" measure in her eyes, France's exit from the electricity market.

Marine Le Pen (RN) campaigning for the second round of the presidential election in Yonne, in Soucy, April 11, 2022 Emmanuel DUNAND AFP

The issues of food or industrial sovereignty have been "revealed by the crises created by Emmanuel Macron from scratch: the crisis of yellow vests, (...) a 100% Macron production" or "the Covid crisis", accuses she.

While the outgoing president criss-crosses his elected lands in Hauts-de-France on the same day, after a late entry into the campaign, Marine Le Pen assures us that she "did not wait for him because otherwise (she) n would never have started" his.

She hopes that the candidate president, by going to Denain (North), one of the poorest cities in France, will become "aware" of "consequences of his policy" which "has done a lot of harm".

Campaigning for the 2nd round of the presidential election, RN candidate Marine Le Pen visits a cereal farm in Soucy (Yonne), April 11, 2022 Emmanuel DUNAND AFP

"And how do they (the farmers) do with the fertilizer?" Asks the candidate for the cereal farmer.

"They don't know" replies the latter, "we are at the end of the system".

"We are clearly at the end of the system", abounds the far-right contender.

"You really have to put everything back together."

"The fats"

Céline and Julien, 39, do not want to give their names.

They don't live far away and came to chat with Marine Le Pen, who multiplies the selfies with the forty or so activists from the department who came to applaud her in a bus bearing her image.

These artisan bakers will vote on April 24, but Céline is still "mixed", she especially wants "someone who does not take care of the big bosses but of the little ones".

Her husband wants her to "get Macron off" and he will vote Marine Le Pen without hesitation, he finds "not normal that someone who jerks off gets nothing more" than him.

Supporters of Marine Le Pen (RN) campaigning for the second round of the presidential election in Yonne, in Soucy, April 11, 2022 Emmanuel DUNAND AFP

“We would like to increase our employees more but we cannot with the charges”, says Céline.

"This is exactly the meaning of my proposal", replies the candidate, who wants to exempt from employers' contributions business leaders increasing salaries by 10% up to three Smic.

At the start of the afternoon, Marine Le Pen, for the third time candidate for the Elysée Palace, boasted, "serene", her "experience" by congratulating herself on having overcome "the obstacles" of the first round, starting by competition from a rival named Eric Zemmour.

She will hit the road again on Tuesday to go to Vernon, in Eure, where she intends to explain her "way of governing" in order to "improve the democratic functioning" of the country.

The RN candidate intends to multiply press conferences because the French "will be very largely misinformed", according to her, between the two rounds.

© 2022 AFP