The Weekly Dispatch - 23 January 2022
The Weekly Dispatch - 23 January 2022
Macron gives a speech to the European Parliament (and starts a French political Brawl), Zemmour gets fined and taken to court again, Le Pen haemorrhages support, and Pécresse fails to manage her funds
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
We’ve seen some slight movements since the 10-13 January poll, but we haven’t seen any major changes. Emmanuel Macron has recovered some of his previous losses by going 0.5% compared to last time.
One the right, the fight continues: Marine Le Pen has seen her polling share go up by 1.5%, while Valérie Pécresse saw her polling numbers drop by 0.5%. meanwhile, Eric Zemmour, the favoured candidate of the global far-right, has lost 2%. This loss is starting to cement his decreasing popularity, and shows that he’ll continue sliding out of the election if he doesn’t turn this around.
Moving to the left, we’ve seen some small changes. Far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon saw his numbers go up by 1%, while Socialist Anne Hidalgo lost 0.5%. Yannick Jadot has seen his numbers stay at 6%, while Christiane Taubira has seen her popularity drop by 1%. To the left of Mélenchon, Roussel has gained 0.5%.
Moving towards the second round, this poll continues to show similar data to other polls: Currently, should Marine Le Pen make it to the second round of the 2022 Presidential Elections, Emmanuel Macron would likely beat her by around 14%, which would be 9% lower than his margin of victory in 2017.
We would see a similar story should Valérie Pécresse make it to the second round, which this poll tells us would lead to an 8% margin of victory for the incumbent president.
Macron’s speech to European Parliament gets derailed
Taking the stage to launch the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech outlining the priorities of the French presidency over the next six months, as well as providing another glimpse of his view of the future for Europe.
Outlining an agenda that covered everything from relations with Russia, the Western Balkans and the African Continent, the future of European society, a reform of the European Neighbourhood Policy, the development of a European security doctrine, and much more, gave a broad outlook of where he not only hoped the French presidency would succeed at pushing the agenda forward, but appeared to call back several times to his now famous Sorbonne speech.
As I’m sure you’ll all be happy to hear, I’ll be bringing out a summary and analysis this coming week.
Naturally, with the state of French politics today, what was supposed to be an event that would allow France to connect with European deputies and build a relationship with key stakeholders turned into a domestic political brawl that struggling opposition candidates hoped would allow them to make a quick name for themselves.
Struggling Europe Ecologie Les Verts Presidential candidate and MEP, Yannick Jadot, was given five minutes of speaking time by his group president, Philippe Lamberts, to speak on behalf of his group.
What he chose to do, however, was aim several attacks at his opponent. He accused Macron of being “the president of climate inaction” as well as a “climato-accommodator” who was guilty of making an alliance with Poland and Hungary that was committing “climaticide” by allowing gas and nuclear to be integrated into the European green taxonomy, offers these energies production methods with financing.
He then went on to accuse Macron of “listening to hazy and nauseous theories of the 'great replacement'".
Unfortunately for Jadot, he was roundly criticised by several MEPs, most notably by an elder within the European Greens, German MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, who denounced his giving a campaign speech as a French Presidential Candidate. The new President of the EP, Roberta Metsola (EPP), also had to bring the MEPs back to order: “I remind you that here, it is not the French presidential campaign”.
Things weren’t much better from the far-right, with Le Pen ally in the EP, Jordan Bardella, declaring that Macron was working to “erase the nations of Europe” and was allowing Europe to become, amongst other things, “Washington's backyard", "Beijing's prey" , "Erdogan 's doormat”, and “the hotel of Africa”.
Needless to say, many European deputies were very, very disappointed by the behaviour of my fellow citizens.
Zemmour hit by third hate-speech conviction
Far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour was fined €10,000 for incitement of hatred following remarks that he made about unaccompanied migrant minors, which he will appeal.
The comments in question were varied, with Zemmour having called migrant minors “thieves”, “murderers” and “rapists” while talking about “a permanent invasion” on CNews back in 2020.
This is adds to several fines he’s had to pay. Back in 2011, Zemmour was fined for claiming that “drug dealers are mostly Blacks and Arabs” which was why non-white citizens had their IDs checked “17 times a day.” He repeated this behaviour several times, before being fined in 2018 for inciting religious hatred, when he claimed that all Muslims think jihadists are “good Muslims” live on French television
And it keeps happening
Showcase what many would argue is a clear sign that he should never hold power and sit in the Elysée, Eric Zemmour, was tried on appeal this week for contesting a crime against humanity, having claimed in October 2019 that Marshal Philippe Pétain, the man who led the authoritarian Vichy France during World War Two, and a man who collaborated with Nazi Germany.
Zemmour steals from Le Pen
However, things aren’t all bad for the polemicist, as his campaign to undermine Marine Le Pen as a candidate and attract members of the Rassemblement National continues to bear fruit. Just this week, we have seen three of her members abandon her party to join Zemmour’s ‘Reconquest !’
Firstly, we had Jérôme Rivière, the leader of the RN deputies in the European Parliament, who abandoned Le Pen to become the vice-president of Reconquest, announcing that “next Wednesday, another parliamentarian would join them”.
Next, identitarian Damien Rieu, a parliamentary assistant to Philippe Olivier, and he will be tackling digitalisation for the Zemmour campaign. It may interest readers to know that Philippe has been described as a “star of the faschosphere”.
Following this, just this morning another French MEP jumped ship, with EU lawmaker Gilbert Collard joining Reconquest due to his “ideas" and to regain a “taste of liberty”, which he believes Marine Le Pen will emulate one day in rejoining Eric Zemmour, who he believes has “a dynamic of historical and political courage”
Unfortunately for Le Pen, things could continue to get worse as a mixture of opportunism and fear take hold of the RN members and deputies
Pécresse sanctioned over regional campaign expenditures
If we shuffle slightly to the centre, things aren’t much better for the Les Républicains presidential candidate, with the Pécresse campaign having taken a hit of its own. having .
Pécresse, who stated that she would “enforce order in the street and in the accounts” (which does not translate well at all into English) has been sanctioned and ordered to pay up to €5,000 by the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Funding. This will be taken out of his reimbursement request for the campaign expenses during the 2021 regional elections.
This is due to a video of Valérie Pécresse, inserted into computers that were sent to high-school students across the Île-de-France in September 2020 and which were activated automatically upon the turning on of the device, which were not declared as part of the accounts but were considered as a part of her campaign.
A very bad look for someone who claims that President Emmanuel Macron “burned the cash register” to promote her own skills, but who appears to struggle to manage her own campaign finances.