The Weekly Dispatch is your weekly summary of the major events taking place in French politics, published on Sundays in order to give you the perfect way to catch up with French news and events.

Polling Update

Since the 3-5 January Poll, Emmanuel Macron has maintained his strong lead over the other candidates despite a 2% drop to 25%, albeit with a lead that has become ever so slightly tighter.

While Marine Le Pen appears to have stagnated at the 16% range, Valérie Pécresse has taken a slight lead on her far-right competitor and is now polling at 17%, which if replicated in April, would be enough to take her to the 2nd round of the presidential elections. Meanwhile, Eric Zemmour lags ever so slightly behind at 14%, improving his position by half a percentage point.

Meanwhile, on the left, we see slight improvements across the board, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon gaining half-a-percentage point to reach 9% in this poll, followed closely by green candidate Yannick Jadot who is polling at 6%, having dropped 1%. However, the arrival of the official candidature of Christiane Taubira has added another name to the left-wing hat, and she is now polling at around 4%.

January is an exciting month

January is a month of many things: new beginnings, new resolutions, renewed angst from having to go back to work and seeing your colleagues, and it is also the month where we may see the end of several presidential candidacies.

With the Popular Primary coming up ahead of time and a potential left-wing coalition being formed around Christiane Taubira, which could kill the candidacies of Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon all in one fell swoop, we could see a drastically reduced list of candidates.

That is, if Jean-Luc and Yannick decide to participate, of course, and don’t decide to lash out if they lose and go rogue regardless.

And on the right, things aren’t any less exciting, with Marine Le Pen having previously declared that she would weigh-up her candidacy in light of her polling numbers, and with her polling appearing to lag behind Valérie Pécresse, we could very well see the leader of the far-right extremes bowing out early.

There’s also the question of what will happen to Eric Zemmour, who has been accused of weakening the far-right and helping Valérie Pecresse with his candidacy, but who is also continuing to struggle to attain his required number of sponsorships and maintain a robust war chest.

Not only this, but there’s an additional question: Is this the month that Emmanuel Macron announces his candidacy?

Probably not, but a man can dream.

Christiane Taubira is officially a candidate

Having been the focus of intense speculation across the French political spectrum, Christiane Taubira, the veteran socialist from Cayenne who served under several Prime Ministers as the Minister of Justice, has now officially announced her candidacy for the French Presidential election.

Outlining a presidential program focusing on four presidential priorities (youth, social justice, ecology and the Republic), the core of her programme includes raising the minimum wage to €1,400, providing a monthly income of 800 euros per student for 5 years, recruiting 100,000 nurses, as well as putting in place a VAT of 0% on biological agricultural products.

Very clearly attempting to cover several core political priorities for several parties on the left, as well as working to compete with the Europe Ecologie Les Verts, Taubira could very well be the unifying force that the French left needs to be able to compete effectively in the upcoming election (should she be selected during the Popular Primary, of course)

However.

The big issue is that neither Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Yannick Jadot, the two actors who are currently the most popular on that side of the political aisle, are keen to participate in the Popular Primary, which could very much lead to their presidential ambitions suffering and being crippled, something that neither would like to see happen and which they will fight against as much as possible.

Historic business record in France

We also got some very good news that will definitely add a feather to Emmanuel Macron’s cap, and will help him to strengthen his position as a candidate whose presidency has been good for French business and finance.

l’INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques) shared this news with us earlier in the week, where they announced that a record number of businesses had been launched in 2021, with almost one million being created in total.

Amongst these businesse, we saw a total increase of 17.4% in the total number of businesses being created (undoubtedly an increase helped by the COVID pandemic), with an inrease of 17% of micro-entreprises being created, and the total number of companies created increasing by 24.3% compared to 2020.

Several sectors stood out as highlights in the creation of new businesses, such as household services (+30%), financial activities and insurance (+30.6%), information and communication (+25, 4%) and transportation and warehousing (+24.9%).

All in all, this strong performance is not only great for France, a country that has left many of us across Europe (not just us French citizens) frustrated with the lack of dynamism within our country, but also incumbent president Emmanuel Macron, who can add this good news to his work in encouraging record levels of foreign investments into the French economy, as well as an economy that is becoming one of the strongest in Europe.

Strike!

Unfortunately, it’s not all good news for the government, as several problems popped up regarding sanitary measures in schools, and a small gaffe from the minister for education which merited an apology.

Teachers went on strike this week to protecst the increasingly complex sanitary protocols that they must follow in schools, due to the complication of the regulations (“These sanitary protocols change every two days in schools”) and the fact that, as one protestor said, there is “zero visibility”, meaning that “every day is a surprise. Will the class be closed? Will the class be open? Will we need to go get tested? We’ve almost become doctors”. This confluence of problems, which is impacting teachers and families in relatively similar ways, led to the teachers strike being supported by parents, who marched alongside them with their children.

This led to the minister for education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, announcing his mea culpa live on France info early shortly after, saying that “he is not perfect, and he makes mistakes”, but announced that he is going to do better in order to support teachers and those who are at risk, promising to provide 5 million FFP2 masks, as well as supporting these teachers with 8,000 additional staff as reinforcements. He also announced that he would strengthen the speed up the installation of CO2 monitors in schools.

Still, not only are these measures required in every environment now, in order to ensure the safety of all citizens, but it also helps to alleviate the pains of a minister who found himself being targetted by Macron’s opponents, particularly those from the left and far-right who demanded his resignation.