Beter HBO

Live: Le Pen calls for ‘unity govt’ as Macron campaigns in her heartland

French President Emmanuel Macron took his re-election bid on Monday to the northern blue-collar stronghold of his rival Marine le Pen, who he will face in an April 24 runoff vote. His walkabout in Denain came as Le Pen promised to put in place a "national unity government" if she is elected to the presidency. Follow all the latest developments on FRANCE 24's liveblog.

President Emmanuel Macron of La République en Marche (LREM, Republic on the Move) won the first round of the French presidential election with 27.84% of the vote, an increase from his first-round score of 24.01% five years ago. Although his team are said to be “satisfied” with the improved result, the president spent Monday campaigning in far-right strongholds in the north of France.
He will once again face Marine Le Pen, leader of the Rassemblement National (RN, National Rally), in the second round of voting after she came in second place with 23.15%, also improving her first-round tally of 21.3% from 2017. Le Pen has said that if elected, she will form a “national unity government” with politicians from other parties who share her vision. She will hold a press conference on Tuesday outlining her “vision for revitalising democracy” in France.
Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon missed out on second place by just over one percentage point, with 21.95% of the vote. Support for Mélenchon was strongest among 18-34 year olds.
Voter turnout for the first round was remarkably low, with 26.31% abstaining.
The Republicans' candidate Valérie Pécresse has said that her party is facing financial ruin after she did not win the necessary five percent vote to qualify for reimbursement from the state for the cost of her seven-million-euro campaign. She has launched a national appeal for donations.

In the aftermath of Les Républicains’ (LR) candidate Valérie Pécresse receiving just 4.8 percent of the vote, underneath the 5 percent threshold for the state to reimburse campaign costs, the party released a statement in the tweet below.
It praises Pécresse’s “courage” and “determination”.
It says that its voters shouldn’t cast a “single vote” for Marine Le Pen whose programme would lead to “chaos”. But it hardly offers a ringing endorsement for Macron – lambasting his “cynicism”.

While trailed by a "swarm of journalists", Marine Le Pen is "having as natural a conversation as she can with [a] farmer discussing the price of grain, discussing the price of fertiliser -- and trying to talk about everyday people's concerns here in France, about rising prices due to the conflict in Ukraine," FRANCE 24's Charles Pellegrin reported from Thogny-sur-Oreuse in the Burgundy region in the video below.
"So one of the key things here that's quite interesting is that Marine Le Pen has been criticised for taking a bit of a low profile about this war [...] because of her previously soft stance on Vladimir Putin. This time around, this is how she's decided to talk about the conflict, talking about the ramifications of this conflict on everyday people."

"Macron starts this fight as the favourite – but he does have a fight on his hands," Jim Shields, a professor of French politics at Warwick University, told FRANCE 24 in the video below.
"He is a beleagured incumbent now; he is no longer the candidate of hope and change that he once was," Shields continued. "People have seen up close what Macron is like as president and many of them do not like him. He is setting out, it's clear today, to insist on the dangers of electing Marine Le Pen. But that won't be enough; he has to defend his record in power, and he has to set out a clear vision of where he wants to take France next."
"So far he has not done this convincingly," Shields added. "And there was a time when Macron could rely on what was called the 'republican front', everyone else gathering round him to see of the far right. That no longer applies in the same way."

Vind ik leuk

0 leden vinden dit leuk

Opmerking

Je moet lid zijn van Beter HBO om reacties te kunnen toevoegen!

Wordt lid van Beter HBO

Welkom bij
Beter HBO

Aanmelden

Banners | Een probleem rapporteren? | Algemene voorwaarden