France assumes the semi-annual presidency of the European Union on January 1 and, four months later, celebrates presidential elections.
That is, that with the arrival of the New Year, Emmanuel Macron – all the world gives for fact that he will want to revalidate the mandate of him although he has not yet made an official announcement-will be, at the same time, a campaign candidate and the
President of the EU Council.
Among the calls to the defense of borders and security (axes of the Marine Le Pen program, the leader of the Ultraraderecha) and the vindication of the French in front of the immigration boom (Keys in the Speech of Valérie Pécresse, a candidate of
The Republicans), Macron claims otherwise: a Europe of nations, dialogue, exchange.
These three names are on the podium of all surveys.
Macron would get 25% of the votes, followed by a tie between Pecresse and Le Pen, who would collect around 16%, according to the Ipsos-Sopra Steria survey of December 8.
The French President has announced a reform of the Schengen space to better protect the external borders of the European Union.
“Europe has to be able to control their borders,” Macron said during the press conference.
One of the objectives of this reform will be launched a “political pilot” of Schengen similar to that which already exists in the Euro Zone (the Eurogroup), which will result in periodic meetings of the competent ministers, EFE reported.
The President has said that the objective of the Presidency is to “move towards a powerful Europe in the world, fully sovereign, free of its elections and owner of its destination.”
Macron said that the motto of this presidency would be “rebirth, power and belonging”.
The president has also announced a summit between the African Union and the EU in February in Brussels and a “migratory package”, with a narrower work with the countries of origin of immigrants.
When in 2017 he won Marine Le Pen in the second round, Macron, in front of the pyramid of the Louvre and surrounded by flags of France, he chose the hymn of Europe as a soundtrack of his triumph.
That Europe in which he has always believed, with the idealistic passion of Plato, away, perhaps, of reality.
You have to remember another symbolic moment on the trajectory of Macron, on September 26, 2017, at the Sorbonne headquarters.
That day, the Chairman proposed to create something similar to the United States of Europe and called to refund the continent – from their finances to its democratic structures – against “nationalism and identity”.
An ambitious discourse that earned him not a few criticisms.
Four years later, the president continues to defend that Europe “can take its own elections, military, technological, cultural, values” because it means abandoning “the discourse of the disabilities,” according to the last Monday during the 25th anniversary of the Jacques DeLors Institute
.
“We are vaccinated thanks to Europe! Without it, abandoned to national selfishness, we could not have done it,” he added.
It has been 14 years since the last time that France occupied that presidency, in times of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Then, for the former head of state, it was a leap in the popularity of him.
But at this time, France – and above all, what France thinks of Europe – has changed.
According to the Odoxa-Backbone Consulting survey for the newspaper Le Figaro, 32% of the consulted believe that preside over the Europe Union will be an advantage and not a handicap (16%) for the Macron candidate.
“The French Presidency of the European Union will take you away from the French, the last few months before the elections. It is necessary that the President keep a lot of energy for all of the national, for his displacements in France. It is an absolute necessity for him, because the French
For a long time they have stopped meeting him, “said Franck Louvrier, former Sarkozy Communication Councilor who today occupies that post next to Macron, Clément Léonarduzzi, in a dialogue that these days remembered the newspaper Les.
A survey of the aforementioned JAQUAS DELORS Institute, last November, entitled EuroScepticism to the French, revealed that France is part of the group of less favorable countries to the European Union (a club where they are also Hungary, Poland or Ireland).
This report pointed out another worrying conclusion and is that European integration is perceived as negative above all between the popular classes, the workers and the unemployed, collectives that see Europe as a threat that could take away the social protections that guarantees the State.
Collectives that, when voting on April 10, opt for a candidate who has not made Europe the cornerstone of his speech.
