“Let him shut up!”: Emmanuel Macron finds himself with his back to the wall, after the slap in the face in the first round of the legislative elections, forced to count his words and his appearances at the risk of sinking his camp a little further.
For a Macronist campaign executive, at the time of the choices between the two rounds, it is better that he keeps his distance.
“I’m not sure that today, if the president calls a candidate to ask him to withdraw, it will have an impact,” she says.
The same observation is made by voters, where the presidential word seems almost devalued, seven years after the election of Emmanuel Macron on calls for political “surpassing” and “neither left nor right”.
“He is more of a deterrent to his own electorate, part of whom are very reluctant to listen to him today,” notes Benjamin Morel, lecturer in public law at the University of Paris 2.
Since Sunday evening, his messages have been released drop by drop, through his entourage, with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal speaking in front of the cameras.
In one of his rare public appearances, the head of state, walking around in a leather jacket and “Top Gun” sunglasses in Le Touquet, where he was voting, was immediately criticized. “Provocation,” Internet users said.
“We must not be mistaken. It is the extreme right that is on the verge of accessing the highest functions, no one else. Not a single vote must go to the extreme right,” he asserted Monday in front of his ministers, according to a participant.
– “Device games” –
Emmanuel Macron, who had fired broadsides at the “extreme left” before the first round, is now calling for withdrawals from all sides to block the National Rally.
Without ever mentioning La France Insoumise (LFI), he also does not rule out withdrawals in favour of his candidates if they are “clearly democratic and republican”.
“We must remember that in 2017 and 2022, on the other side, on the left, everyone carried this message. Without that, your servant and you would not be here,” he hammered home in front of his ministers.
The message – deliberately ambiguous? – divides his camp, with former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Economy Minister Bruno Lemaire ruling out any withdrawal in favour of LFI.
“The president does not play the game of the apparatus,” retorts a close friend. “He just says the line: republic, democracy vs. RN. The rest is up to the parties and those responsible for the campaign to do.”
The presidential message can also be interpreted differently by those likely, on the right and the left, to vote in the second round for Macronist candidates.
“To what extent will centrist voters follow the instructions?” adds Vincent Martigny, political scientist at the University of Nice Côte d’Azur and the Ecole Polytechnique.
The Insoumis remain a scarecrow for many right-wing and centrist voters, as do sometimes their socialist, environmentalist and communist allies within the New Popular Front (NFP).
– “Very damaged” –
“Half of Renaissance voters may vote for the NFP, half may abstain,” estimates Vincent Martigny.
For the president, the game also looks set to be very tight after July 7, whether he enters into head-on cohabitation with the RN or comes to terms with a minority and technical government, the two most likely scenarios.
“From a legal point of view, he will be very ‘narrow-minded’. He can make appointments, but with the approval of the Prime Minister, and essentially has the power to prevent in the event of cohabitation,” points out Benjamin Morel. With, in addition to dissolution, exceptional powers in the event of a serious crisis threatening the Nation.
Faced with a technical government, it will be able to exist more easily on the international scene by invoking its “reserved domain” in matters of foreign policy and defense.
Unlike previous cohabitations, however, he cannot stand again in 2027, which reduces his room for maneuver, while potential candidates for his succession are already sharpening their weapons.
“He is responsible for his situation through the dissolution, is very damaged in public opinion and no longer has any troops,” observes Benjamin Morel.
“Everyone in the majority has turned their back on him a bit. There is a side to René Coty”, president (1954-1959) under the Fourth Republic, he says.
