After Emmanuel Macron's first five-year term marked by the Yellow Vests crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, the map of Sunday's election results draws two Frances: on the one hand, the large cities, the upper middle classes and the retirees who voted for Macron;

on the other, a more popular France, often feeling excluded, particularly in the northeast and around the Mediterranean, having voted for Le Pen.

Faced with this divided France, the Head of State must rebuild social cohesion.

After the loss of two million votes between the second rounds of 2017 and 2022, and faced with a record abstention rate in Sunday's election (28%), Emmanuel Macron promised a "refounded method" to be the "president of all".

But the challenges ahead are many.

  • The legislative elections in seven weeks

Initially, the newly re-elected president will have to face the legislative elections of June 12 and 19.

Against the background of the recomposition of the political spectrum, the objective for the Macron camp is to organize a new majority and ensure its solidity.

With a score of 41.5% of the vote in the second round of the presidential election, Marine Le Pen harbors the hope of obtaining "a large number of deputies" by bringing together the forces opposed to the head of state.

On the left, after a promising start, the negotiations for the union with a view to the legislative elections are slipping between La France insoumise, Europe Écologie-Les Verts and the Communist Party.

The Socialists have finally managed to enter the dance: a meeting with the Insoumis is scheduled for Wednesday.

  • The decline in purchasing power

While Marine Le Pen had made the purchasing power of the French people one of the central themes of her campaign, Emmanuel Macron for his part evoked on April 13 on TF1 "an exceptional law for purchasing power" whose objective is to reindex all pensions on inflation and to reduce the charges for the self-employed.

We must "respond to the message of anger, of concern from millions of French people who say 'I can't get by'", affirmed for his part the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on Monday on franceinfo, confirming that the shield on gas prices would be "maintained until the end of 2022", and that the government was working for "the summer" on an aid device targeting large rollers.

  • The hospital under pressure

White plans, closed beds, suspended services: warning signals are multiplying in the hospital, where staff shortages aggravated by the flu and the Covid-19 leave no respite while waiting for the "big conference" on the health promised by Emmanuel Macron.

After two years of health crisis, and despite the unprecedented salary increases of the "Ségur de la santé", the sector is suffering more than ever from a crying lack of arms.

"The emergency is now", underlines Didier Birig, federal secretary of FO-Santé, "ready to get back around the table" to negotiate new upgrades and caregiver ratios in all services.

His CGT counterpart, Mireille Stivala, also wants "immediate" discussions to raise the salaries of caregivers "at least to the level of neighboring countries", but also to guarantee "early retirement" for these "arduous jobs".

  • A undermined pension reform

The Head of State had defended during the 2017 campaign a pension reform aimed at establishing a universal system and abolishing special schemes, but this project, which led to a major social movement at the end of 2019-beginning of 2020, has was postponed indefinitely at the time of the health crisis, before being definitively abandoned.

At the very beginning of the campaign between the two rounds, Emmanuel Macron declared himself open to discussion on his reform project, while maintaining that it was essential.

“The CGT will quickly be able to remind the president and his new government that there is majority opposition to his projects, in particular to extend the retirement age to 65, rejected by nearly 70% of the population”, warned the Montreuil plant.

For his part, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire did not rule out Monday morning a possible recourse to 49-3 to have the reform adopted.

  • The climate emergency

After a first-round campaign in which the environment and the climate were almost absent, Emmanuel Macron played the ecological card between the two rounds.

He pledged to go "twice as fast" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 - but climate advocates are waiting for action.

In terms of energy, he intends to carry out, thanks to planning, "an unprecedented effort of sobriety, to reduce our consumption by 40% by 2050".

Its program relies heavily on nuclear power to decarbonize electricity production, with the construction of 6 to 14 new generation reactors (EPR).

It also promises the establishment of 50 wind farms at sea by 2050 and to increase solar power tenfold.

Among the other objectives announced, the energy renovation of 700,000 homes per year, a strengthening of cycling infrastructure, a rental offer for electric and hybrid vehicles at less than 100 euros per month, and a "third agricultural revolution".

In addition, air pollution, responsible for 40,000 premature deaths per year in France, was largely absent from the campaign.

"For the moment, we have nothing to prove to us that Emmanuel Macron number two is going to be better than Emmanuel Macron number one", underlines Jean-François Julliard, representative of Greenpeace France.

"We will judge on paper."

With AFP

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