The Weekly Dispatch - 6 March 2022
The Weekly Dispatch - 6 March 2022
Big polling movements, Macron is finally En Marche, Taubira is out of the race, the Popular Primary supports Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and he supports abandoning NATO.
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.
After a short hiatus for obvious reasons, we’re back!
Polling Update
It’s been a while, my dear readers, and a lot has changed since our last conversation two weeks ago.
Firstly, now-candidate President Emmanuel Macron has gone up to 29% in the polls in the last week, increasing his lead due to the perception of his strong leadership both in the lead-up and during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On the right, Marine Le Pen finds herself sitting in second place at 17%, while Valerie Pécresse has recovered slightly and sits at 14%. Eric Zemmour, on the other hand, has suffered another setback and is currently sitting only polling at 12%.
On the left, there have been a few dramas in the last few weeks, the biggest of which being that Christiane Taubira has dropped out of the race due to her poor polling. Jean-Luc Mélenchon currently polls at 11.5%, not yet having had the chance to benefit from the popular primary giving him a boost in support. Meanwhile, Anne Hidalgo continues to languish in last place amongst the mainstream left-wing presidential candidates, while ecologist Yannick Jadot and communist Fabien Roussel sit only slightly ahead at 5% and 4% respectively.
Macron En Marche!
After months of speculation, and just before the end of the pre-election period, French President Emmanuel Macron officially announced his candidacy for re-election during the 2022 French Presidential Election via a letter outlining his reasoning for joining.
Beginning his letter with a summary of the challenges that France has had to face over the last 5 years (terrorism, the pandemic, return to violence, war in Europe), he makes the case that France has reacted with dignity and that every citizen has done their part.
Lamenting that he can’t campaign as he would have liked due to the very present Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, he outlines his position as the candidate to “defend [French and European] Values”
He promised to lower taxes on labor and production, to increase investments to place France as a leader in sectors such as renewable energies, nuclear, batteries, agriculture, digital, or space, in order to ensure the independence of the country.
He also promised to strengthen the French education system (“priority will be given to the school and to our teachers, who will be freer, more respected and better paid.”), invest to allow people to live their old age in their homes for as long as they can, and referring to recent scandals involving care homes, he promised to make them more humane.
“Together, we can make these times of crisis the starting point for a new French and European era”
He finished up his letter by arguing to defend France’s place in the world, and to strengthen the attachment of citizens to the republic while further investing in security and justice.
Naturally, with all analysis pointing to the extremely high likelihood of him winning the election (Hi, Hillary Clinton), confidence is very high in the Macron camp. However, as the candidate himself said in a new YouTube series that began the other day, you cannot just assume that the people will support you, and he still needs to put in the hard work while managing the ongoing crises (yes, COVID-19 still exists and is still a problem)
Taubira is out of the Race
After a turbulent campaign that will be remembered for the unfortunate and unsuccessful attempt to unify the left and an inability to gather the required support from the left-wing parties.
"Despite the very strong mobilization of volunteers and my campaign team, despite the promises of many elected officials, which have not materialized, it is obvious that we will not be able to bring together the 500 sponsorships "
This was a campaign that was crippled from the get-go: a late announcement that was dragged out, a haphazard campaign calendar, an increasingly high-level of critique levied towards her political platform, and a shocking lack of support despite the promises that she received.
Honestly, however, it was almost expected. Having effectively disappeared from political life for six years while other left-wingers like Mélenchon consolidated their hold and reinforced the divisions between the groups, she always had a tough battle to fight to get through to not only the second round but to even make it to the first.
Many will lament the fact that the winner of the Popular Primary, aimed at unifying the left-wing parties behind a single candidate to be more competitive in the upcoming election, appears to have been a complete failure as a democratic exercise. However, it has led to the popular primary moving to support…
The Primaire Populaire supports Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Having now found its exercise floating in the political ether, with their chosen candidate having abandoned the Presidential race due to a lack of support, the Popular Primary has chosen to support Jean-Luc Melenchon, despite him having come in third place behind Taubira and Yannick Jadot, due to his leading position in polling across all left-wing parties.
With Yannick Jadot having been clear that he considers the Popular Primary “a joke”, it would be hard to argue that this democratic exercise hasn’t been anything other than a display of the incredibly damaged ability of the left to fight for its best interest, as opposed to falling victim to the egocentric fights of its political leaders.
Not only this, but the Popular Primary is now supporting a candidate who seems to want to blame all of Vladimir Putin’s behaviour on NATO, and is using the situation as an excuse to campaign for France to quit NATO and further divide and weaken European security interests.
Thank you for keeping us up to date on French politics. France is one of my ancestral mother countries, I've been lucky enough to have visited there, and American media reporting on France isn't worth a good merde.