The Weekly Dispatch - 6 February 2022
The Weekly Dispatch - 6 February 2022
Le Pen attempts to rally the troops, wins a bank loan from [REDACTED], and receives support from Viktor Orban; Macron meets with Putin and Zelensky, and France gets shoved out of Mali.
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
As we approach the first round of the Presidential Election, we’re beginning to see the polling numbers solidify for most of the candidates, and excepting any major surprises a-la Penelopegate (comment below if you’d like to know more about this…), the final numbers won’t be too far off the above.
However, things are still moving! Since last week’s poll, Emmanuel Macron has seen his lead go up to 25.5, extended by an additional 1.5% and leaving himself 7.5% ahead of Marine Le Pen, who has stayed at 18% since last week. Unfortunately for Valérie Pécresse, things continue to get worse, with a 1.5% drop compared to last week which leaves her only 1.5% ahead of Eric Zemmour, who maintained his position at 13.5%.
Moving to the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has gained 0.5% to reach 10%, with his supporters being undaunted by the result of last week’s Popular Primary (spoiler: he didn’t win). Yannick Jadot dropped an additional 1.5%, bringing him down to the same level as Christiane Taubira, who sits at 4.5% after gaining 0.5% in the polls following her expected win in the Primary which was supposed to unify the left behind one candidate (spoiler: not gonna happen).
Unfortunately for both, they’re not roughly equal with French Communicate Party candidate Fabien Roussel, who sits at 3%. All of them sit above Anne Hidalgo, who came fifth in the left-wing multi-party primary, and who dropped a percentage point since the last poll and sits at 2.5%.
Le Pen attempts to remobilise the troops
Following the damaging defections from the Rassemblement National towards Eric Zemmour’s party Reconquête, Marine Le Pen called for a meeting to ‘remobilise the troops’ and to attempt to galvanise the people that are supposed to help her win the upcoming election.
Targeting party leaders, department delegates, militants, and other actors, aiming for a total of 1,000 people for the meeting (with the meeting numbers not having been released following the meeting), this was sold as a “classic” meeting that happened all the time during elections.
Le Pen gets a campaign loan from Hungarian bank
Having struggled to finance her electoral campaign, and having previously had to rely on a Russian bank loan to fight the 2017 election, Marine Le Pen has once again had to rely on a foreign bank to finance her campaign.
This time, however, she decided not to go to a Russian bunk, but instead opted for a €10.6 million loan from the Hungarian bank [REDACTED] (We won’t know which one due to a confidentiality clause that is in place for more than a little while)
Naturally, people have made some connections, which funnily enough aren’t too insubstantial due to the upcoming events…
Orban to support Marine Le Pen in Reims
Viktor Orban recently announced that he will give his official support to Marine le Pen during a meeting this weekend in Reims, where a video will be played moments before Le Pen makes her big move onto the stage.
Unfortunately for her, he is unable to attend in person following a combination of COVID and fatigue after his recent visit to meet his friend and ally Vladimir Putin in Moscow where he sought the Russian president’s support in the face of a tough election that is coming in April.
Naturally, this is all linked to the ongoing redevelopment of a stronger coalition of European far-right parties in the European Parliament, where two of the leading actors include Viktor Orban and Marine Le Pen, along with other leaders such as Matteo Salvini who aim to create a Eurosceptic power that could rival the European Peoples Party Group (EPP) , the Socialists and Democrats Group (S&D) and the Renew Europe Group.
Macron to meet Putin and Zelensky
Europe is continuing to grapple with ongoing efforts to impose itself in the discussions surrounding the ongoing Ukraine crisis, and is attempting to rectify the damaging image that problematic responses such as sending 5,000 helmets to help Ukrainians face an army 10 times it’s size created.
In response to these ongoing issues, and in an attempt to find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, French president Emmanuel Macron has decided to intensify efforts and will be meeting with the Russian President on Monday in Moscow, as well as meeting the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky the following day in Kiev.
Both of these 1-on-1 meetings are following on from a recent tête-à-tête with American president Joe Biden, and are being done in “coordination with European partners”. Understandably so, as one of the major goals of most European states right now being to ensure that what happens in Europe isn’t decided upon by everyone but Europeans.
On another hand, the successive travels of diplomatic delegations to Ukraine is forming a sort of shield around the country, with the head of the Ukrainian diplomatic corps, Dmytro Kuleba stating that it hindered Russian efforts to “aggravate the situation from a security point of view”.
Whether these discussions are able to find a breakthrough, particularly with the reinforced Russia - China axis now working actively against the expansion of NATO, and with an almost cold-war dynamic emerging from the situation, we won’t know until after the discussions have been had and the read-outs have been released.
French Ambassador Expulsed from Mali
France has been heavily involved in the fight against the jihadist insurrection in the Sahel as a whole, but in particularly, it came to the support of the Malian government in 2013 when the then government requests help from French president Francois Hollande.
Unfortunately, things have since changed, and with the French/European presence being gradually pushed out of the country by PMC Wagner, this order evidently left a negative taste in the mouths of many French citizens and presidential candidates.
From the far-right, Le Pen called this a “humiliation” and lamented that "France has lost a crazy amount of influence in Africa"
Eric Zemmour, never one to be too far behind Marine Le Pen, echoed the claims of a humiliation, and called for a rethinking of French policy towards Africa as “our soldiers die for a country that humiliates us”.
Valérie Pécresse made the attack more of a targeted attack on the government, denouncing a government that has “not anticipated this crisis” while trying to reinforce her position on foreign and military policy, stating that France must stay “in the Sahel to protect the territory from the islamist menace that can total destabilise Africa”
The problem with the situation, as you can imagine, is both rather complex and rather simple in terms of what has happened.
Firstly, France found itself providing military support, military training, financial assistance and development aid to a country that lacked democratic legitimacy, and that had a president in Assimi Goïta who attempted to build an anti-colonial agenda to build his political support.
The decision to ultimately eject the French ambassador came after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian claimed that the Malian government was illegitimate and out of control.
This situation, ultimately, puts at risk the gradual Europeanisation of the mission that was envisaged by Emmanuel Macron as a way of building the argument for a European military force. It will also pose serious questions about the upcoming “Strategic Compass” and how the EU can operate military operations externally.
It also puts at risk the lives of Malian citizens, and those across the Sahel, as without French and European military forces to rely on, they will likely find themselves having to rely on Russian mercenaries who can leave just as quickly as they come, in both cases, at a much higher price.