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DIJON, France — Emmanuel Macron had a short phrase of help for Ukrainian protesters who had come to satisfy him as he stepped out of his automobile in Dijon, however he shortly moved on.
The French president was within the jap metropolis to satisfy locals from a council property in Fontaine d’Ouche, eager to indicate that he can take heed to the wants of the general public. Some have been there to take selfies with the president, others to complain. Many mentioned the final couple of years had been significantly robust.
“Put your self within the sneakers of an bizarre French household, it’s horrible,” mentioned one man, who accosted Macron as he glad-handed locals on his option to a debate with charity employees and officers.
“It’s horrible to do the buying, to replenish your tank. I used to get respectable pay, I used to be in a position to go on vacation, get monetary savings. However that’s not the case, I’ve grow to be a poor employee.”
The encounter summed up the paradox of this presidential election. With lower than two weeks earlier than voters head to the polls to solid their first-round votes on April 10, the warfare in Ukraine has sucked up a lot of the airtime however voters nonetheless largely care about jobs and the price of dwelling, points which can be exacerbated by the Russian invasion. Macron faces a possible runoff vote on April 24 in opposition to far-right Nationwide Rally chief Marine Le Pen, who has campaigned persistently on the price of dwelling.
Macron’s reply on Monday was rigid.
“I’ve no magical reply, the rise in fastened prices is a tragedy for the center lessons,” he informed the person who was anxious about spiraling prices. However he famous that his authorities had put billions of euros on the desk to guard French residents from extra value spikes, significantly on their power payments.
“Should you take electrical energy, if we hadn’t taken measures your invoice wouldn’t simply have elevated like fuel, it might have doubled,” Macron mentioned.
The president has been accused in current days of dodging the marketing campaign and utilizing the warfare in Ukraine to keep away from going head-to-head together with his rival candidates. Macron has led, albeit in useless, a diplomatic push to get Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine and, final week, he introduced a humanitarian operation to evacuate the besieged Ukrainian metropolis of Mariupol “within the coming days.”
Whereas his rivals have taken to the stump in a marketing campaign largely overshadowed by exterior occasions, Macron’s workforce has pumped out images from the Elysée of their man hunkered down in his workplace, unshaven and sporting a French paratrooper sweatshirt. Critics have been fast to counsel he’s copying the look from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and is utilizing the warfare to spice up his probabilities of reelection.
Added to that, he solely formally declared his candidacy earlier this month and unveiled his marketing campaign platform very just lately. Whereas different candidates have debated the way forward for France and met voters at native markets, Macron has not held any rallies and has hardly ever figured on the marketing campaign path.
Regardless of all that, Macron is the clear favourite, with polls suggesting he’ll win 28 % of the first-round vote, forward of Le Pen’s 19 % share. In a runoff, Macron would seemingly beat his far-right rival by 58 % to 42 %.
Talking on the sidelines of the president’s Dijon go to, François Patriat, a senator from Macron’s La République en Marche celebration, defended the choice to give attention to worldwide points and never participate in TV debates with rivals forward of the primary spherical of voting.
“Debating shouldn’t be combating with 10 different candidates in a TV studio,” Patriat mentioned. “The true debate is between the candidate and the French folks. He places his proposals on the desk, they usually resolve.”
Giving again shopping for energy
In Dijon, a standard left-wing stronghold, Macron met college students on vocational programs and fogeys on advantages at a council property, and supplied a transparent message: his medication was bitter, but it surely was the correct one to avoid wasting France.
“For the primary time for the reason that Nineteen Seventies, we’d win the battle to achieve full employment,” he informed officers and charity employees. Final yr, France’s unemployment fee dropped to 7.4 %, its lowest degree since 2008.
“That is doable for the primary time in many years. And it’s good for getting energy, as a result of it’s those that don’t have a job who battle probably the most to make ends meet,” he mentioned.
After a five-year time period marked by the Yellow Jacket protest motion, the coronavirus pandemic and now the warfare in Ukraine, Macron goes again to fundamentals to marketing campaign on proposals to chop taxes, generate wealth, make investments massively to create jobs, and lift the retirement age.
However his proposals danger showing much less beneficiant than these of his opponents, each on the far left and the far proper. Far-left chief Jean-Luc Mélenchon is providing to extend the minimal month-to-month wage to €1,400 if he’s elected, and Le Pen has promised to slash taxes on gasoline to assist a broad swath of French households.
And in Fontaine d’Ouche, many say such proposals are tempting.
“Mélenchon provides one thing fully completely different,” mentioned Lunes, a lorry driver. “He desires to assist people who find themselves struggling, who can’t discover a job. I’ve been in that scenario, it’s an actual battle.”
However he added that he has since discovered a job, and reckons Macron’s administration of current crises hasn’t been unhealthy.
“I’m nonetheless pondering,” he mentioned. “The primary spherical is in two weeks, that’s once I’ll resolve.”
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