Paris If Emmanuel Macron wanted to set an accent in the French election campaign, then he succeeded. The National Assembly in Paris discussed a controversial law late on Tuesday evening, with which the government wants to introduce the 2G rule in almost all areas of public life.
Macron’s core sentence can be translated with varying degrees of sharpness. In the polite version it would read: “I really want to get on the nerves of the unvaccinated.” However, the French verb chosen by the President is derived from a fecal expression. In the rowdy version, you could write in German that Macron really wanted to “piss off” those who refused to be vaccinated. In any case, it is a tone that the French are not used to from their head of state.
Three months before the presidential election, the pandemic is increasingly becoming the focus of political debate. The number of infections has risen to a record level in France. The seven-day incidence was last at 1870. Macron, who is likely to make his candidacy for a second term official in the coming weeks, is trying to walk a tightrope.
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He definitely wants to avoid severe restrictions for the entire population, while at the same time putting increasing pressure on those who refuse to be vaccinated. Actually, in an interview with the newspaper “Le Parisien”, Macron only reaffirmed his corona strategy, albeit in a fairly blunt form.
Angry reactions from the two challengers Le Pen and Pécresse
The angry reactions of his political opponents came promptly. “Macron is unworthy of his office,” rumbled right-wing populist Marine Le Pen. As president, he must guarantee “the cohesion of the nation”. Instead, he is dividing the country and making the unvaccinated into “second class citizens”. The leader of the Rassemblement National made it into the runoff election in 2017, in which the two top-ranked candidates in the first round will run. There she then clearly lost to Macron. This year there could be a new edition of the duel.
The presidential candidate of the bourgeois-conservative Republicans, Valérie Pécresse, also sharply criticized: “I am outraged by the statements made by the President,” she said. “Insults are never a good solution.”
The “humiliations” from the Élysée Palace should come to an end. In the polls for the first round of voting on April 10, Pécresse is tied with Le Pen behind leading Macron. In the runoff election on April 24, direct comparisons by opinion pollers suggest that she would be the much more dangerous challenger for the incumbent president.
The indignation in both the right and left opposition camps about Macron’s vaccination comment was so great that the parliamentary debate on the new corona rules was suspended at night. The National Assembly resumed its deliberations on Wednesday afternoon and the law will be passed by the government majority in the coming days.
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The Élysée Palace wants to stick to the schedule despite the delays: From mid-January, many areas of public life should only be open to vaccinated or convalescent people. A negative test is then no longer sufficient, for example, to eat in a restaurant, go to the cinema or travel on long-distance trains.
Most recently, the authorities recorded more than 270,000 new cases within 24 hours. The situation in the hospitals is worsening. Nevertheless, the current corona measures in France are comparatively mild. The cafes and shops in Paris are well frequented, and bars and restaurants are also open under certain conditions.
The protests against corona rules determine the election campaign.
(Photo: imago images / IP3press)
Although employees are encouraged to work from home, there are no contact restrictions in the private sector. For events, there are upper limits of 2000 participants indoors and 5000 participants outdoors. Only clubs and discos had to close again.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the French government imposed a lockdown lasting several weeks. There were also strict curfews from time to time last winter. In comparison with Germany, France is now on a more relaxed course despite a much higher incidence value. This is not necessarily because Macron does not want to face hardships with the population three months before the election.
The president puts everything on the vaccination card. His reasoning: Around 90 percent of the population over the age of twelve are now vaccinated. Why does the great majority have to suffer because of an unreasonable minority?
With his tough tone in the vaccination debate, Macron has taken a political risk. However, his chances of voting among the nearly five million unvaccinated French are likely to have been extremely slim anyway. With the large number of vaccinated voters, however, the president could hit a nerve with his tirade against vaccination refusals.
“I hear what the President said everywhere,” said Macron’s Prime Minister Jean Castex, who answered questions from parliamentarians at short notice on Wednesday. “Our citizens are fed up with the fact that everyone should stick to something and some then decide to simply disregard it.
Postal voting not possible: worry about low voter turnout
The election campaign under the sign of Corona is not only a political, but also an organizational challenge for Macron’s government. The Ministry of the Interior in Paris must ensure that the two election rounds run smoothly. In the course of January, a non-partisan commission is to discuss the conditions under which the election campaign and the polls in the pandemic can take place.
There is great concern about a low turnout, as in the regional elections last summer. The problem: Postal voting is not allowed in France, and it is now too late to change the voting rights. There are also constitutional hurdles for possible conditions in the election campaign: The number of participants in political events may not be limited by the state.
Several parties, including La République en Marche by Macron and the Republicans of Pécresse, want to adhere to the ceilings for non-political assemblies. On the other hand, right-wing candidate Éric Zemmour, who ranks fourth in the polls with 13 percent and is one of the sharpest critics of the president’s corona policy, does not want to be prescribed.
When his election campaign kicked off in December, almost 15,000 supporters came to an exhibition hall north of Paris. The posters summarized Zemmour’s interpretation of the hygiene rules as follows: If you really want to wear a mask, then please in the French national colors.
The pandemic has already shaken up the election calendar in France twice: in 2020, the decisive round of local elections took place months later due to the lockdown. In 2021, the regional elections were moved from March to June. Speculations that the presidential election could also be postponed were resolutely opposed by the Élysée Palace in December. When asked whether such a scenario would be played out, the answer was: “Not at all.”
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