🇫🇷 Heading towards June
A Polling Update for France, Valérie Hayer takes on Jordan Bardella in BFMTV EU debate, Emmanuel Macron is meeting Xi Jinping this week, and the Government pushes for accelerated offshore wind power
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This week
📊Polling Update
🤼Hayer takes on Bardella in BFM debate
🇨🇳Macron meeting Xi Jinping this week
💨Government pushing for accelerated offshore wind power
📊Polling Update
Right, to start the week off, let’s have a look at a poll that was completed just before the Hayer-Bardella debate. This poll is coming from Cluster17 for Le Point, so remember this won’t be the same as those by IFOP or Harris Interactive
Coming first with 29.5% of vote intention, the Rassemblement National looks like it will increase its vote share by 6.5%, while Valérie Hayer’s Besoin d’Europe campaign is sitting at 15.5%, looking like it will take a 6.5% hit compared to 2019.
Hot on Hayer’s heels, Raphaël Glucksmann continues his aggressive pursuit, leading the centre-left Parti Socialiste / Place Publique list to a polled 13% of support (+7)
Squeezed between the two parties, Les Républicains sits at 7.6%, dropping by 1.4% compared to 2019. They are struggling to maintain their identity in an increasingly crowded field, losing votes both to the far-right and to the centre-right parties within the presidential majority.
Everyone’s favourite far-left firebrand, La France Insoumise, appears to be making a remontada in this poll, raising it’s numbers to 8%, which would be a 2% improvement on 2019. However, it shows a big fall from grace for a party that was dominating the left for several years.
Europe Ecologie Les Verts (-8%) and Les Republicains (-3%) are both struggling to raise their profile, sitting at 6% each and only just edging out Eric Zemmour’s Reconquete, who so far has 5.5% of the total polled numbers.
But how does this all look in terms of seats?
However, things don’t stop there, and if we look at the below hierarchy chart, set up by Mingo Garscha over at Europe Elects based on of the average of several polls for France, things still don’t look so great:
If the election took place today, the RN will come in first with 27 seats (+3) in the European Parliament, while the Besoin d’Europe list would come in second with 17 seats (-6). The PS/PP list would have 11 (+5), followed by Les Republicains (-1) and La France Insoumise with 7 (+1), and both Reconquete and Les Ecologiste (-7) with 6.
🤼Hayer takes on Bardella in BFM debate
So, this week also saw the tête de liste for the Macronist Besoin d’Europe campaign, Valérie Hayer, take on Marine Le Pen’s prodigy and likely successor, Jordan Bardella, one month before the June 9 European election date.
With Bardella operating in home turf, with BFM TV being a news station that has been fairly friendly to the Rassemblement National’s talking points, Hayer had an uphill battle to fight, and honestly, from all of the people I’ve spoken to within and outside of Renaissance, it seems like Hayer may not have pulled it off
With complaints of unfairness towards the Macronist candidate from most wings, and the fact that she was being targeted primarily on style points, while Bardella was tee’d up with some fairly soft questions.
Covering everything from Ukraine, immigration, (in)security in France, and the agricultural sector, Bardella successfully reduced the European debate into a national one, turning the event into a free attempt to not only push forward his talking points, but even to start chipping away at the Macronist camp and to set the scene for 2027.
While there was far too much to go over in this weekly dispatch, you’ll be able to hear me go over the debate over on my Twitch or YouTube channels in far more detail, so make sure you subscribe on one or both!
🇨🇳Macron meeting Xi Jinping this week
Moving to the presidential level: French President Emmanuel Macron will be receiving Xi Jinping for a state visit starting today, where Macron will attempt to shore up the relationship and reestablish European strength in the discussions.
Following on from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ more bilaterally focused visit to China recently, many have been wondering what it’s impact would be on the discussions between Macron and Xi Jinping, and whether it would lead to a similar domestic refocusing for France.
However, with Macron working to solidify his legacy, and his recent Sorbonne speech (link above), he instead invited European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to join him, as well as Olaf Scholz, who declined during a dinner this week.
With the state visit also celebrating 60 years of bilateral diplomatic relations between France and China, the fact that he’s including the European Commission President, and invited the German chancellor, was a pretty big sign of his ambitions.
However, there’s another dimension that is hitting Macron quite hard: the question of human rights and, most notably, the Uighurs.
As was seen in Le Monde this week, French Uighurs are very unhappy about Macron inviting « the executioner of the Uighur people, the number one responsible for the genocide of the Uighurs » to France.
This discontent rose to the point that the founder of the Uighur Institute of Europe launched a press conference in paris, where she lambasted the president.
« In this context where the genocide is still ongoing, this welcome by the French president of the executioner of the Uighur people is incomprehensible to us … and an encouragement for China to continue its crimes until the end … For the Uighur people and in particular for the French Uighurs, it is a slap in the face that our President Emmanuel Macron is giving us »
- Dilnur Reyhan, founder of the Uighur Institute of Europe, in Paris on Friday 3 May 2024
The Franco-China relationship has regularly been strained by the topic of the Uighur genocide in Xinjiang, with Emmanuel Macron having regularly attempted to find a way to both address the problems, as well as trying to circumvent them in other discussions.
Not only this, but the Assemblée National adopted a resolution denouncing the Chinese « genocide » of the Uighur people in January 2022, supported by no small amount of deputies from Renaissance, then called La République en Marche.
It will be interesting to see whether Macron listens to the protests from the Uighur population of France, and raises the issue of the re-education and concentration camps with the Chinese president.
However, even if he does, let’s face it: it’s incredibly unlikely that Xi Jinping would listen.
💨Government pushing for accelerated offshore wind power
Moving onto an environmental topic: France is increasing it’s push for renewable energies, notably looking at offshore wind farms to ensure it’s energetic safety.
Visiting Saint-Nazaire, French Economy and Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, alongside Industry and Energy Minister, Roland Lescure, announced a major plan to strengthen the French offshore wind energy sector, as part of a wider strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
The ministers travelled to the area to attend the signing of a monumental €4.5 billion deal with RTE, Chantiers de l'Atlantique, and Hitachi to build offshore electricity platforms, underpinning France's commitment to escalating its renewable energy production.
Le Maire and Lescure inaugurated a station intended to provide equipment and material for the Engie-constructed wind farm off the Yeu and Noirmoutier islands, which is intended to be operational by 2025.
This station will play a crucial role in harnessing electricity from offshore turbines and transmitting it to the mainland, potentially powering up to 800,000 people.
Currently, French offshore wind energy production contributes a relatively small amount to the national electricity mix. It’s for this reason why the French government is setting ambitious targets to amplify this by around 20% by 2050.
This goal, however, requires a substantial scaling-up of operations and a swift increase in investment and technological/industrial development to support this effort.
As you well read readers of mine know, France leans heavily on nuclear power, and while this remains the core of the French strategy, it’s very clear that a substantial increase in renewable sources like solar and wind can only be a strong benefit for not only France, but the European Union.
During his visit, Le Maire hammered home the urgency of scaling up offshore wind capabilities to ensure French security, and stated that “In June 2024, 1.5 GW of electricity will be deployed using offshore wind; it will be double that, 3GW, from 2025, and the objective is to reach 18 GW in 2035 and 45 GW in 2050.”
He also said something incredibly interesting: that “in 2035, offshore wind power will produce as much energy as that which is consumed today by the Brittany, Normandy and Pays-de-la-Loire regions combined”
France's offshore wind farm landscape is set to expand significantly. Operational wind farms off Saint-Nazaire, along with upcoming installations in Fécamp and Saint-Brieuc, mark the beginning of a decade-long development across the Normandy, Brittany, and Mediterranean coasts. The government has also announced new tender calls for additional farms, projecting a robust map of suitable areas for wind power deployment by September.
However, challenges remain. The offshore wind sector, still in its nascent stages in France, faces technological hurdles and economic feasibility issues. There are concerns about the environmental impact on marine biodiversity and fishing grounds, along with economic pressures to make these costly investments profitable.
In a broader context, the industry confronts global competition, particularly from China, which dominates the wind turbine manufacturing sector. This poses a threat of market saturation with cheaper, Chinese-made equipment, potentially undercutting European producers.
Le Maire emphasized the need for Europe, and particularly France, to maintain control over the entire value chain of wind energy production, from turbine manufacturing to installation. With plans to grow the domestic wind turbine industry workforce from 8,000 to 20,000 by 2035 and a commitment of €40 billion in public investment, France is poised to bolster its industrial base.
But let’s see how it actually plays out.
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