(Paris) “A battle of values” against “extremes”. Emmanuel Macron called on Wednesday for a broad “rally” around his majority to defeat both France Insoumise and the RN, justifying with “gravity” the calling of early legislative elections.
After his decision on Sunday to dissolve the National Assembly, which surprised even his camp, the President of the Republic insisted that it was a choice of “clarification”. Refusing “the spirit of defeat”, he defended himself from wanting to “give the keys to power to the extreme right in 2027”.
“The start is for now,” he added, believing that it was necessary to interrupt a process that was “taking place silently”, that of the RN’s accession to power.
He added that he did not wish to debate, before these legislative elections of June 30 and July 7, with Marine Le Pen, after having nevertheless proposed it during the European campaign.
A few days after catastrophic results in the European elections, where the far right garnered nearly 40% of the votes, he held back his blows neither against the RN nor against La France insoumise, “two blocs”, “two extremes”, he repeated in his opening remarks.
He was speaking for the first time in the campaign for these elections which will take place on June 30 and July 7. To clearly mark the difference with its executive functions, the conference was organized in a room in the center of Paris and not at the Élysée Palace.
In support of this debate on values, Emmanuel Macron accused La France insoumise of “anti-Semitism” and “anti-parliamentarism”, castigating the movement of Jean-Luc Mélenchon for having “created sometimes constant disorder” and “worrying » in the National Assembly.
The “Popular Front” alliance currently being formed between the PS, the PCF, the Ecologists and La France insoumise is “indecent”, he denounced, saying he had “a thought over the last 24 hours for Léon Blum” in one of his numerous appeals to the socialist electorate of Raphaël Glucksmann. The left has in fact chosen to give the name “popular front” to its electoral alliance.
Reacting hotly to a “flood of words, insults, and contempt” from the head of state, Jean-Luc Mélenchon regretted that Emmanuel Macron “is sinking into the strategy of chaos and the war of religions to brutalize the election.”
As for the RN, the president castigated its ambiguities towards Russia, its desire to “leave NATO” and its contradictory speech on pensions.
“The masks are coming off,” he said, also referring to the rallying of Republican boss Éric Ciotti to the National Rally.
“Mechanical tinkering”, “unnatural alliances”, these are not, according to him, “in any case majorities to govern”.
Oppositely, he displayed a “sincere and humble desire to build consensus and weave compromises” thanks to the help of the “social democrats” on the one hand, and the Republican right on the other. He spoke of a “federation of projects to govern”, with the responsibility for the parties of the presidential majority to begin discussions with other political groups.
Perhaps to encourage elected officials from the left and the right, Mr. Macron announced pell-mell the removal of a territorial level, possibly the abandonment of large regions, “a great debate on secularism”, the maintenance of indexation of retirement pensions to inflation.
He also called for a ban on cell phones for children under 11 and confirmed he wants eight new nuclear reactors. He also said he was “open” about the “modalities” of implementing the unemployment insurance reform, which is highly contested by the left.
The head of state spoke in the presence of his government and the majority leaders, with the exception of Édouard Philippe who on Tuesday considered it “not completely healthy” that the president was getting too involved in the campaign.
During his press conference, he also acknowledged his “responsibility” for his camp’s failure against the far right.
And within the majority, there are many voices who would like to see the head of state who crystallizes all the criticism, withdraw from the campaign, preferring Gabriel Attal to lead the battle.
During the president’s speech, the PS confirmed in a letter to its activists on Wednesday that an “agreement in principle” had been reached between the different left-wing parties to distribute the constituencies on June 30. LFI will have 229 candidates, the PS 175, EELV 92 and the PCF 50.
“The essential work on the program is still under discussion” and there will be “no concessions on our values,” socialist leaders Pierre Jouvet and Sébastien Vincini clarified in this letter.
The question of the personality who will lead the campaign also remains open, the Mélenchon case, accused in particular of ambiguities on the question of anti-Semitism tensing part of the left.
For their part, the Republicans are in the midst of crisis management. An executive board meeting has been convened at 3 p.m. at the party headquarters to proceed with the exclusion of President Éric Ciotti, who called for an alliance with the National Rally for the legislative elections. A press conference is planned just after this meeting, to which the Alpes-Maritimes MP, who intends to keep his position, has announced that he will not attend.
