Hello, it’s lunchtime in Paris and Emmanuel Macron will make his first trip as a candidate to Poissy, a city in the Paris metropolitan area, whose mayor, Karl Olive, a former conservative, joined him in 2019.
What happened during the weekend? Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen (le Rassemblement National) spent part of the weekend trying to minimize the rallying of her ambitious niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen to Eric Zemmour (Reconquête !), her arch-rival on the far-right.
Why does it matter? Eric Zemmour has a gender gap in the polls, with a deficit among women voters. If he manages to make up this deficit, he can hope to beat Marine Le Pen in the first round.
Far-right candidate Eric Zemmour was playing offense when the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. According to some polls, he was tied statistically to his rival Marine Le Pen and to Conservative Valérie Pécresse. Advancing to the second round was not totally out of reach. Smelling blood, some senior executives of Marine Le Pen’s party had even decided to endorse him instead of her.
The Russian president’s decision has changed the game and his poll numbers have dropped. First, the invasion has cast doubt on Eric Zemmour’s ability to be president. He had been reckless enough to bet on TV that “Patriot Putin” would never invade Ukraine. Then he was the only one of the leading presidential candidates to refuse to welcome Ukrainian refugees before he was forced to swallow his words. He admitted on Sunday that those who would like to come to France for some reason should be admitted.
Second, the war in Ukraine buried Eric Zemmour’s central talking points. The former polemicist said he entered politics only to save France from death. According to his narrative, his country was under the threat of a “Great Replacement” of the French population by non-White immigrants. In his customized version of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations,” Islam was the source of all evil. Now Europe faces the risk of a nuclear winter triggered by a White, Christian president.
“The war diverts attention from the major issues for France in the next five years, we are sucked eastward by this war while our problems are in the South,” he lamented on Friday. It would need a miracle to turn the clock backwards. Vladimir Putin’s madman posture, the daily wall of images of the bombing of Ukrainian residential areas are turning the tables.
He who constantly praises the people and sovereignty has not found much to say about the people of Ukraine and their right to choose their future. While the concept of a European defense capacity has made more progress in ten days than in thirty years, he is clinging to his conception of a solely French defense, detached from any alliance.
Eric Zemmour thought that he still had a card up his sleeve: the public support of Marine Le Pen’s own niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a former member of parliament. He played it on Sunday during a rally in Toulon (south of France). It remains to be seen whether this much-appreciated support will give him some wind in his sails again.
Ideologically speaking, Eric Zemmour and Marion Maréchal address the concerns of the same voters. Like him, she is more conservative on social issues than Marine Le Pen, and closer to supply-side economics. This electoral segment is sometimes called the Versaillaise right wing, named after the bourgeois and very conservative city, located west of Paris. It was a stronghold of the mobilization against gay marriage, in the early 2010’s.
No doubt that this right wing considers Eric Zemmour as its hero. It gives him a strong electoral footing whatever his weaknesses like a fourth conviction last Friday, this time for “copyright infringement” (he had used movie clips in his first campaign ad without any clearance). Previously, he had been sentenced for provocation to racial hatred. Nevertheless, it is not enough to overtake Marine Le Pen, let alone compete with the outgoing president.
Emmanuel Macron very specifically targeted Eric Zemmour in the letter in which he announced his candidacy last week. “The challenge is to build the France of our children, not to rehash the France of our childhood,” he wrote, suggesting that the former polemicist is driving with his eyes on the rear-view mirror. There is a good reason for that: according to the latest Le Monde poll published on Saturday, his reelection would be all but assured if he would have to face Eric Zemmour instead of Marine Le Pen in the second round.
Number of the day
12
Twelve candidates (including four women) will appear on the ballot for the first round of the election, on April 10, according to the official list published on Monday by the Constitutional Council, the referee of the election. Trotskyst Philippe Poutou, already a candidate in 2007 and 2012 has been the last to obtain the mandatory 500 sponsorships.
Quote of the day
“Jaurès must be screaming in his grave”
Environmentalist Yannick Jadot fiercely attacked leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon for his positions on Ukraine and Russia. “He thinks he is Jean Jaurès now,” criticized Mr. Jadot (Jean Jaurès was a famous Socialist assassinated on the eve of WWI), “but Jaurès must be screaming in his grave.” Jean-Luc Mélenchon opposes sanctions against Russia and refuses to allow the Ukrainian resistance to be armed. “All his great speeches on peace mask his complacency and his capitulations to Putin. Can you imagine Jean Jaurès defending the assassination of political opponents in Russia? Can you imagine Jean Jaurès defending war crimes ?” Yannick Jadot added.
Countdown
34 Days until the presidential election’s first round
48 Days until the presidential election’s second round
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.