Europe 1 with AFP 11:48 a.m., April 13, 2022

Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday accused his far-right presidential opponent Marine Le Pen of "authoritarian drift" with regard to the press and institutions, the latter castigating in return his "febrility". 

Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday accused his far-right presidential opponent Marine Le Pen of "authoritarian drift" with regard to the press and institutions, the latter castigating in return his "febrility".

When the candidate of the National Rally "says 'you are a journalist, but sir is not because he says things that I don't like', we have the beginning of an authoritarian drift", declared Wednesday morning on France 2 the candidate president, noting that the same day his opponent had proposed to "change the Constitution in his hand".

“Let it go rather to the substance of my project”

Asked about these remarks, the far-right contender ironically wondered if it was the "same President of the Republic who suppressed the press room at the Elysee Palace" and "who created a scandal within newsrooms because he wanted in each newsroom to choose the journalists who followed him".

"All of this shows a form of feverishness on the part of the president. Emmanuel Macron obviously does not have a lot of hooks as far as I am concerned, that he rather goes to the substance of my project", added the candidate, who visited a concrete factory in Gennevilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis).

Asked about the fact that journalists had not been invited to this trip, she said it was a "problem of space".

"We cannot, for security reasons, have all the journalists on a dangerous site like this".

Marginalization of certain media

Marine Le Pen had assumed on Tuesday to marginalize the journalists of the TV Quotidien program, accused of making "entertainment" and not "information", during a press conference on institutions and democratic life.

Relations between the RN and the press are sometimes fraught with tension.

In September 2019, the RN had temporarily withdrawn the accreditation of a journalist from Liberation to cover his summer university in Fréjus (Var), after the daily broadcast of a portrait of the RN mayor of the city.

In Mayotte in December, the media Mayotte Hebdo had protested against the prohibition made by the team of the candidate, to one of its journalists, to continue to follow her on the island.

Mediapart journalists, until this campaign, were not accredited to RN events.

For its part, barely arrived in 2017, Emmanuel Macron's team had launched a project to close the press room overlooking the main courtyard to move it to an adjacent street.

After the mobilization of accredited journalists and certain editorial staff, it had partially backtracked in early 2019 by preserving the press room, while amputating half of its space to create an office for the security services.

In May 2017, the editorial staff also protested against the Elysée's desire to favor journalists specializing in diplomacy and defense, and not in politics, to follow Emmanuel Macron's first trip to Mali.

Finally, the presidency had pleaded misunderstanding and assured that it did not intend "to do the work of the editorial staff" in their place.