French President Emmanuel Macron has made rare public appearances since his defeat in the first round of legislative elections on the 30th.
According to the newspaper Politicalthe last time the president was seen in public on the streets was when he went to vote in the coastal city of Le Touquet on Sunday, an occasion in which he attracted a lot of attention on social media and news channels.
After the disastrous election results, Macron did not even make a statement on French television to “comfort” his allies in the parliamentary elections. The Elysee Palace only issued a brief statement from the president calling for “broad unity” among voters.
According to Politicalthe reality is that the current president’s popularity is in free fall even among allies, who want him out of the electoral campaign.
“They told him to stop [de fazer campanha]… And it’s not that he actually heard our message, it’s more that he was forced to hear it,” a Renaissance party official told the newspaper, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“[O presidente] underestimated how turned off the public was by his personality,” the source close to the situation said.
This was evident in an interview with a minister in Macron’s government, who admitted to the French leader’s “worn-out” image. According to Christophe Béchu, head of the ecology, sustainable development and energy portfolio, “there is a wear and tear that has affected all the presidents of the Fifth Republic. He [desgaste] is even bigger because this is Emmanuel Macron’s second term,” he told the French channel TF1.
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) won a resounding victory in the first round of the legislative elections in France, after achieving 33.15% of the vote along with conservative allies, which has worried the current Macronist government.
In turn, the left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front (NFP) obtained 27.99% of the votes and thus became the second major political force in the country, ahead of the majority now at the end of the term of President Emmanuel Macron, who is the big loser of the elections, with 20.04% of the votes.
With the possibility of a new victory in the second round of voting by Le Pen’s RN, the French president may have to enter into a “cohabitation” government with the right-wing nationalist party, which is expected to command the largest group in parliament.
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