Incumbent Macron on Sunday after announcing the results of the first round of the French presidential elections in Paris
Image: picture alliance / abaca
The freedom-loving French will not relish the subtle compulsion of having to vote for Macron unless all good spirits have deserted them. An old mistake threatens to catch up with the President.
SA day has passed since Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the presidential election campaign, but so far there has been no word from the cultural world. A few artists came to his only campaign meeting in Paris. Despite the rather sporty ambience – the La Défense Arena as the location and the heater Éric Dagrant, who usually makes the football crowd glow – the actress Carole Bouquet, the director Claude Lelouch and the producer Dominique Besnehard were there; Bouquet’s presence came as little surprise as she is close to Brigitte Macron. In the media, as in 2017, actor Pierre Arditi and singer Line Renaud spoke out in favor of the incumbent. There was late but minimal commitment from the cultural world to candidate Macron.
The other candidates fared little better, as culture and education were generally not an issue in an election campaign that oscillated between foreign policy topicality and domestic money shortages: In the end, identity and immigration were less dominant, as the purist right-wing extremists around Éric Zemmour had hoped, and more “le pouvoir d’achat”, the purchasing power, as the French euphemistically describe the vile cash to give it both social and economic honor. In this field – the most important for 57 percent of the French – the populist Marine Le Pen had much more to say.
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