Macron’s new role will be a choice factor

6 p.m. Friday was the deadline for presidential candidates to formally submit their ambitions and submit a list of at least 500 elected officials supporting their candidacy to the State Council. The field of candidates is set, the election campaign is entering the crucial weeks. However, the political debate no longer revolves around corona policy, the heated dispute over Muslim immigrants and the alleged loss of national identity or Macron’s economic balance sheet. It’s war.

“International politics is at the center of the presidential election campaign,” analyzes Gilles Finchelstein, head of the Fondation Jean-Jaurès think tank, “this is a situation that has not existed for a very long time.” The events on the eastern border of the European Union worry the French: According to a survey by the Elabe Institute, 72 percent fear the conflict will have a significant economic impact.

Macron is walking a tightrope: he is both candidate and president in times of war. The 44-year-old, who moved into the Élysée Palace five years ago at the head of a new central alliance, is posing as the protector of the French these days. He is pushing into a leadership role in Europe. He is the western head of state with whom Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently spoken most frequently on the phone. “Of course, given the circumstances, I will not be able to campaign as I would have liked,” Macron wrote in his letter to the French.

That shouldn’t hurt him. Initial polls show that Macron could benefit from voter uncertainty during the crisis. “Any criticism of those in power in this unprecedented context could be seen as a disloyal act,” suspects Pascal Perrineau, a professor at Sciences Po in Paris. “It’s about the role of France and not Emmanuel Macron.”

Two days after the first Russian missiles fell on Ukraine, Macron opened the agricultural fair in Paris. The Salon de l’Agriculture is a must-attend event in French politics, and this time just before the elections. A few years ago, Macron had his picture taken there with a lamb in his arms. This time the situation did not allow for such a peaceful picture: “The war is coming back to Europe,” said the President during his brief appearance on February 26 in front of farmer representatives.

Macron had hoped for a diplomatic solution until a few days before the Russian war of aggression. He kept phoning Putin and traveled to Moscow for more than five hours of talks. Macron sees himself as a “mediator” who uses “all his energy” for security in Europe, according to the Élysée Palace.

Macron’s vision of “European sovereignty”

For Macron, it was always about the “sovereignty” of the EU, of which France has held the Council Presidency for six months since January. Since a speech at the Sorbonne shortly after his election success in 2017, the French President has been saying that Europe must act as an independent power in the world. For him, this includes an independent energy supply and military capabilities. What was initially smiled at as a fantasy has become an overwhelming reality in recent weeks.

Macron’s attempts at mediation failed. The Élysée Palace had wanted to spread hope through Russia the night before the recognition of the separatist areas in eastern Ukraine: Putin and US President Joe Biden are in principle ready for a summit meeting on a French initiative. In the meantime, Macron has lost all illusions, and the president’s environment has described Putin as “paranoid”.

However, Macron wants to continue regular phone calls with Putin to explore opportunities for a ceasefire and a political solution. And that also during the time-consuming election campaign. A senior adviser said: “The President believes it is imperative that we remain in touch to prevent the worst.”

This is how the Handelsblatt currently reports on the Ukraine war:

At the same time, Macron seems more determined than ever to promote the idea of ​​”European sovereignty” in all areas. , Macron explained in his speech on the Ukraine war. He again called for the establishment of a “European defence”. The issues are at the top of the agenda at a summit of EU heads of state and government on Thursday and Friday this week in Versailles

Macron prepared the French for the economic consequences of the war. “Our agriculture, our industry, several sectors of the economy are suffering and will suffer,” he said. In everyday life, the crisis will show up in petrol prices and gas bills. But he wanted to protect the French from the effects as far as possible. Macron also made a clear commitment to taking in refugees from Ukraine in France.

Hanging game up to the candidacy

The escalation of the crisis also makes it clear why Macron had repeatedly postponed the official declaration of his candidacy. It was an open secret that he would serve for a second term. Since last autumn, there has always been a bit of election campaigning in his projects. The “France 2030” plan, a 30 billion euro investment program for the green and digital conversion of the economy in the coming years, could certainly be understood as an economic policy program for a possible second term in office.

Earlier this year, Macron admitted in an interview that he had a “desire” to run again. The parties of the ruling center alliance had already gathered in Paris at the end of November, including Macron’s “La République en Marche”. Under the name “Ensemble Citoyens!” (“Citizens, together!”), they set the goal of winning the majority again in the election year. Close to the party headquarters in the eighth arrondissement of Paris, confidants of the president prepared the campaign discreetly.

Publicly, on the other hand, when asked about his candidate status, Macron stated that the “current geopolitical crisis” required his full attention. The opposition has since lost patience and accused Macron of running a shadow election campaign at state expense. In the meantime, not only Macron should see his assessment confirmed that he would concentrate on his tasks as president “until the last quarter of an hour”.

>>> Background: These are Macron’s rival candidates for the presidency

During the crisis, the government is trying to convey the impression of national unity. Speaking at the National Assembly, Prime Minister Jean Castex called on MPs to respond “with unity” to the challenges posed by Russia’s war of aggression. Castex received the other presidential candidates at his office to share insights into the current situation and explain the government’s actions.

Macron’s most important challengers have a problem with Russia – above all Marine Le Pen, who, according to polls, recently had the best chance of taking part in a runoff election. The right-wing populist, who lost to Macron in the second round of voting in 2017, has to explain how close she is to Putin. Your Rassemblement National party, formerly the Front National, received a million-euro loan from a Russian bank a few years ago. In the 2017 election campaign, Le Pen was received by Putin in the Kremlin in a powerful way.

Russia problem the Macron challenger

Like Le Pen, right-wing nationalist Éric Zemmour has shown a great deal of understanding for Russia’s alleged security concerns towards the West in recent weeks, even though both ultimately criticized Putin’s conduct of the war in Ukraine. A similarly ambivalent attitude towards Moscow was taken by left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is currently the only representative of the fragmented left-wing camp to get more than ten percent in the polls.

Valérie Pécresse, the conservative-bourgeois Republican candidate, like Macron, takes a tough stance on Moscow and supports EU sanctions. However, her party colleague François Fillon, once Prime Minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy and failed Republican candidate in the 2017 election, caused an image problem: Fillon was only reluctant to part with his Russian supervisory board mandates.

According to think tanker Finchelstein, the Ukraine war illustrates profound changes in the political coordinate system of France’s Fifth Republic. There is an “erosion of consensus on international issues”. A central line of conflict now runs between candidates who would turn away from the West and tend towards Russia.

>>> Also read the comment of the head of the Handelsblatt office in Brussels: Nato vs. Putin – The balance of terror is back

The debate surrounding the Ukraine war will also test how credible and presidential a candidate is perceived. “Before the war, Macron already had a substantial lead over his opponents on those two criteria,” Finchelstein said. Against the background of the crisis, this became even more entrenched.

Pollsters see Macron as the clear favorite for both the first round on April 10 and for the runoff two weeks later. However, in his first election campaign video, which was released over the weekend, the President warned his supporters that, despite the good poll numbers, the outcome was “in no way scratched”. In the coming weeks he will “convince, propose, be attacked and face the controversy”.

His first major campaign rally is scheduled to take place in Marseille next Saturday. Macron’s team had actually planned this date a week earlier – but then postponed it because of Ukraine.

More: “In the new Cold War, China plays the leading role,” says historian Niall Ferguson.