French await sign that Macron will rerun for President

Emmanuel Macron appears finally close to revealing his intention to run for re-election as French President in April.

A supporter slaps a poster up near Paris calling on Emmanuel Macron to declare his candidacy for French presidency. Picture: AFP

Will he take the plunge at a mass meeting, during a television interview or while cuddling a lamb at France’s biggest agricultural show? Either way, Emmanuel Macron appears finally close to revealing the country’s worst-kept political secret: his intention to run for re-election as President in April.

Since the start of the year, in the words of one commentator, Macron, 44, has been looking down, Jupiter-like, from the heavens as his mortal rivals have been “killing each other like Greeks and Trojans”; a reference to his much-quoted aphorism that France’s leader should govern in the style of the chief of the Roman gods.

Yet Jupiter, it seems, must soon come down to earth – the question is when, and in what guise. French media have been studying Macron’s diary for clues to where the almost candidate could finally declare. Events in the coming days at which he is due to appear include a meeting with Jewish leaders and a trip to the Salon de l’agriculture, a traditional place of pilgrimage for politicians keen to show their links with la France profonde.

Neither may be quite right, however. A worsening of the crisis over Ukraine could also cause a delay. Asked last week, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said merely that the President would make clear his intention “when the time comes”, while noting that, under electoral rules, he still has until March 4.

Jean-Yves Dormagen, a political scientist at Montpellier University and head of Cluster 17, a polling company, said Macron “does not really want to fight an election campaign, which is why he is leaving it as late as possible”.

When he finally does throw his hat in the ring, he will probably hold just “one or two big meetings, a very presidential demonstration of force” and has made clear he will not take part in television debates with his rivals.

A role model could be Francois Mitterrand, the late Socialist president, who let slip his own ­decision to stand for a second term in 1988 almost as an aside during an interview barely a month before the vote. He was easily re-elected despite having hardly engaged with his opponents. By contrast, Jacques Chirac, his successor, fought a campaign more than twice as long.

Such tactics are understandable, given Macron’s domination of the French political landscape. Polls in recent months have put support for the President consistently about 25 per cent, well ahead of the dozen or so other candidates he will face in the crowded first round on April 10; a tribute largely to his reputation for competence, whether over the handling of the pandemic or foreign affairs.

“Plenty of people don’t agree with him and he is also divisive, with some finding him elitist, ­arrogant, pretentious or working for the richest, but it is very rare to find someone who believes he is not up to the job of being president,” Dormagen said.

The same is not true of his three leading rivals, Valerie ­Pecresse, 54, of the centre-right Republicans, and the two hard-right flag-bearers, Marine Le Pen, 53, and Eric Zemmour, 63, who lag well behind on 15 to 16 per cent. Or of Jean-Luc Melenchon, 70, head of the far-left France Unbowed party, who is ­several points behind them.

Macron can take most comfort from a recent slide in support for Pecresse, who had enjoyed a surge after winning her party’s nomination in December, with some polls at the time suggesting she might even beat him in the second-round run-off.

Despite her high profile as president of the Paris region, she has struggled since to make her mark and has been further damaged by her first big campaign speech a week ago, seen by allies and enemies alike as a disaster. Pecresse conceded afterwards she was not much of a public speaker. “If you are looking for orators, there are plenty on the campaign trail,” she said. “I’m someone who gets things done.”

She has also suffered a string of high-profile defections and has not been helped by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who, though also a Republicans member, has yet to endorse her and has been scathing about her performance in private remarks that predictably leaked to the press.

Le Pen, meanwhile, has been suffering losses of her own: Nicolas Bay, an member of the European parliament who acted as her spokesman, was suspended from the party last week after she ­accused him of sabotaging her campaign by leaking information to the Zemmour camp. Bay, ­described by Le Pen as a “slimy slug”, has denied the charge.

Potentially even more damaging for Le Pen is the prospect of her niece, Marion Marechal, 32, a former MP seen by some as a presidential candidate in her own right in 2027, coming out in favour of Zemmour. Marechal has said merely that she is inclining towards her aunt’s arch rival.

The polemicist said last week he would make Marechal his prime minister if he became president –- provided she campaigned for him.

Such defections have prompted growing speculation in recent days that it will be Zemmour, rather than one of his two female rivals, who will make it into the second round of the presidential election, not least since turnout among his core voters is expected to be high. But, like his rivals, he looks likely to be soundly beaten by Macron if he does.

Matters are looking even more dismal on the left, with Melenchon’s more moderate rivals, Anne Hidalgo, 62, the mayor of Paris, Christiane Taubira, 70, a former Socialist minister, Fabien Roussel, 52, the communist candidate, and Yannick Jadot, 54, a green, all polling below 5 per cent.

Yet with seven weeks to go surprises are still possible: it would take only a few more left-leaning voters to defect to Melenchon, who is on about 11 per cent, to give him enough votes to get into the second round.

The Sunday Times