The quasi-candidate Emmanuel Macron is in Nice on Monday to present his proposals on security, a central theme three months before the presidential election, and defends a record qualified as “secure Waterloo” by the right.
This first trip by the president since he said last week to want to “piss off” the unvaccinated, comes against the backdrop of violence against elected officials in favor of the vaccination pass, such as the assault on Sunday of a LREM deputy from Saint-Pierre -et-Miquelon, strongly condemned by the political class.
The Head of State, given at this stage widely at the top of the polls in the first round, must “draw the contours” of the future programming and orientation law for internal security (Lopsi) for the years 2022-27.
“We must work for the quiet life to which all our fellow citizens are entitled, we are not there yet (…) but we must tirelessly improve things”, he declared at the beginning of a series of ‘discussions with elected officials in front of the future “police hotel” to bring together the national and municipal police forces in a police station equipped with cutting-edge technologies.
He must project himself into the future and “draw prospects” because “we can not afford to be frozen on security”, according to an adviser.
He will have a lot to do to defend a record that the right radically challenges him.
Last week, during a trip to the south-east, candidate LR Valérie Pécresse announced her intention to “bring the Kärcher out of the cellar” to “clean up the neighborhoods”, using a controversial expression from Nicolas Sarkozy when he was Minister of the Interior.
– A “Mechanical Orange France” –
And Monday morning, Eric Ciotti deputy LR of the Alpes-Maritimes and “adviser to the authority” of the candidate of the right, castigated “a safe Waterloo” concerning the balance sheet of President Macron, accusing him of having left the company “to go wild” with “a mechanical Orange France”, in reference to the ultra-violent film by Stanley Kubrick.
With this visit, described by Mr. Ciotti as “a small electoral maneuver”, Emmanuel Macron would be “in the process of misleading the institutions by campaigning with the means of the State in a shameless manner”
But for the mayor Christian Estrosi – an ex-LR ally of Emmanuel Macron – the latter “comes to Nice as president”, for “the general interest” and on the basis of a “shared vision on the means that ‘we have to give to our security forces.
The management of the Covid crisis, with contaminations at their highest for two years and difficulties in schools, remains omnipresent in the presidential campaign.
Opponents of the vaccine pass, adopted at first reading last week in the National Assembly and which arrives in committee in the Senate on Monday, took to the streets on Saturday after the end of the year holiday truce with a mobilization in clear rebound.
Some 105,200 participants marched in France on Saturday, four times more than the 25,500 on December 18, according to the Interior Ministry.
– Violence against elected officials –
And many political leaders on Monday condemned the assault by alleged protesters opposed to the pass suffered by deputy Stéphane Claireaux (LREM) the day before in front of his home in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
The Minister of Relations with Parliament Marc Fesneau warned against the risk of “totalitarianism”.
The boss of the LREM group in the Assembly Christophe Castaner condemned on France Inter “cowardice in the face of a man alone, who was peaceful, defenseless”. “There were in 2021 what I counted 322 threats against deputies, including two thirds against deputies of my group”, recalled the former Minister of the Interior.
For the boss of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure, “some anti-vax take as an alibi the provocations of the president to justify their violence. But no, nothing can justify it”.
The majority “do not intend to make the vaccination pass a permanent measure”, tried to reassure Christophe Castaner.
On the left, Christiane Taubira, who “plans” to run for president, is traveling to Nantes after announcing on Sunday that she would submit to the result of the Popular Primary, a citizens’ initiative scheduled for January 27 to 30, of which she will accept “the verdict”.
The left is split into five main candidates, and none of them is able to compete in the polls with the rights and Emmanuel Macron.