«Drum beating», this is how Emmanuel Macron’s staff described the campaign strategy of the candidate-president to face the ballot with Marine Le Pen. The leader of La République en Marche decided not to waste time and immediately occupy the land with a long day in the Pas-de-Calais department, one of the poorest in France and stronghold of the Rassemblement national, where the president only got the 24.1% against 38.6% of Marine Le Pen.
Macron’s idea was to avoid the same mistakes of 2017, when the candidate celebrated access to the second round in a brasserie in the south of the capital, the Rotonde – which later became the symbol of his detachment from the real country in the first months of his mandate – and then disappeared for two days, organizing an election event only the following Wednesday.
At the time, the election seemed obvious, this time it is much less so, and not only for reasons related to electoral flows, which underline that almost a third of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s voters, who finished third in the first round, could move to Marine Le Pen. The real novelty of these presidential elections is that the Rassemblement National candidate has become a “normal” challenger, capable of identifying with the French who are having difficulty making it to the end of the month due to the explosion of inflation and prices of goods. first necessity.
Thus, the staff of the president-candidate has foreseen a very tight schedule for this week: after the visit to Pas-de-Calais on Monday, Macron will move to the Grand Est region on Tuesday, and another election day is scheduled before the big meeting on Saturday, which will be held in Marseille, the city where Jean-Luc Mélenchon finished first with 31.1%.
Macron has decided to spend the whole day among the most troubled Frenchmen just to take the pulse of the situation, try to understand if his presence triggers disputes, which have not occurred.
However, Macron found that his passage does not even generate enthusiasm: the French whom he met on his tour between Denain and Corville shook his hand politely, only to point out to him their financial difficulties. And almost everyone asked him to back down on the pension reform proposed in early March.
The president had already said he wanted to reform the system during the 2017 election campaign and had presented a bill in 2019 that was later abandoned due to the protests and the pandemic.
Today the French can retire at 62, while Macron’s new proposal envisages progressively increasing the minimum age to 65 by 2032 (by four months each year), and reducing the special regimes provided for today by the law. which is different for each professional category, keeping only three: public employment, private employees, self-employed.
The reform is deemed necessary because the pension system is in deficit of about 10 billion euros every year, but with the three-year increase in the minimum age, the cost of social benefits is offset and the system should return to balance within a decade. . To balance the sacrifice required, the president promised to raise minimum pensions to € 1,100.
Late Monday evening, probably impressed by the amount of people opposed to his project and aware of having to start giving something to avoid “dividing” the country at a time when unity is needed to beat the far right , Macron has taken a half step back.
Faced with journalists crowded between cameras and cameras, the president said he was willing to compromise in the coming months: pensions at 64 but in 2028, or pensions at 65 but with a greater graduality, moving the date of application. final after 2032). In this way, Macron tried to speak to the electorate about Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who proposed lowering pensions to 60, and also to that of his rival, on similar positions.
By doing so, Macron also tries to make the debate on an issue less hysterical that, judging from this first day on the pitch, could dominate the next two weeks. With an eye to the TV debate scheduled for April 20, the real decisive moment of the electoral campaign.
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