After winning the first round on 23 April with 24.1 per cent, Emmanuel Macron, the centrist independent candidate and favourite in the French presidential election, did not have a great week. Off to face hard right candidate Marine Le Pen (21.3 per cent) in the second round on 7 May, his campaign hit a series of mismanagements.
He celebrated his first round victory with A-listers at La Rotonde, a shiny Parisian bistro, seemingly underlining the “elite” image Le Pen has worked hard to give him. He then suggested that François Hollande’s former prime minister Manuel Valls could join his cabinet if he left the Socialist party, which did not exactly help, as Valls is mostly remembered – and hated – for enforcing a permanent state of emergency and several laws without consulting parliament. Finally, and it announced the duel to come, he visited Whirlpool’s kitchen hardware factory in his native Amiens, where he spent an hour talking to the crowds of workers furious at his globalist stance. Le Pen then showed up by surprise and collected cheers. Overall, Emmanuel Macron spent most of the crucial two weeks between the rounds trying to bring French voters to support his project, instead of rallying them against the threat of Le Pen’s National Front.
Content from our partners
