Why the Élysée very quickly removed this video of Emmanuel Macron alongside Valérie Hayer

POLITICS – Heat stroke at the Élysée. For the first time since the start of the campaign for the European elections in June, Emmanuel Macron appeared publicly alongside his head of list Valérie Hayer, this Wednesday April 17 in Brussels. In the process, the video of his intervention was published on the Élysée’s X account. A communication after which LFI saw red, the clip being immediately deleted during the night, we imagine it to avoid any controversy.

At the end of the evening, Manuel Bompard, the coordinator of France Insoumise, pointed out “ the use of the means of the Élysée to campaign for the list supported by the president”. A practice “contrary to electoral financing rules”, protested the MP, who referred the matter to the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing (CNCCFP).

On the right and the far right, some elected officials also denounced the publication of the video. “ You really have to be worried about your candidate’s score to allow yourself such a departure from the basic rules of an electoral campaign. “, for example tweeted Othman Nasrou, the vice-president of the Île-de-France region, member of LR and close to Valérie Pécresse.

Likewise, the RN deputy Grégoire de Fournas directly challenged the CNCCFP, castigating “ the use of state means for electoral propaganda purposes, which is completely prohibited by the electoral code “.

Emmanuel Macron already sanctioned

This is not the first time that the CNCCFP, an independent authority founded in 1990, has found itself poking its nose into the financial management of a campaign by Emmanuel Macron. In 2022, the commission sanctioned the use of the official Facebook and X accounts of the Élysée for electoral purposes. The head of state had been penalized and had not been reimbursed 100,000 euros in campaign expenses.

In this month of April 2024, the sequence finally deleted by the head of state was supposed to give momentum to the campaign of his candidate, who is currently far behind his main opponent Jordan Bardella, in the polls. Mayennaise peaks at more or less 19%, according to the HuffPost compiler. And this while the RN MEP dominates the race with 29%.

“There are a lot of fears and worries in the moment we are experiencing and these angers always benefit the most simplistic responses,” thus attacked the head of state at the RN, without naming him, in the famous sequence. “We have the right candidate and above all the good ideas”, he also rejoiced.

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