He defends himself from the start of the match. “I don't touch anything on matters that are regional. I am not interfering in this campaign, ”insists Emmanuel Macron, upon his arrival in Poix-de-Picardie (Somme). We should not also expect him to launch a call for mobilization by Sunday. It prevents. Three days before the first round of departmental and regional elections, his arrival in Hauts-de-France, third stage of his tour de France, has, in itself, everything to suggest the opposite. The region is so strategic. Sunday evening, the result of his opponent declared in the presidential election, outgoing president Xavier Bertrand, will be so scrutinized. Like the one from the LREM list to the five ministers, struggling from start to finish.
During the day, the president does not say a word about this campaign, except to deny (sometimes annoyed) to carry it out.
Not enough to prevent his opponents from reading his coming as such.
"A tactic of media presence and field before the deadline", thus slices Christophe Coulon, vice-president of Bertrand in the region.
See also Emmanuel Macron in Hauts-de-France: a trip to Xavier Bertrand that makes you cringe
The day also begins with a duel from a distance - the two men will not meet - with the boss of Hauts-de-France. The end of wearing a mask outdoors? “Thank you for the first round of the regional elections (…) What gift do we have next week? »Pounded Xavier Bertrand, on France Info. Then, he sends this salvo: "He is in the countryside, let him recognize it, it will be clearer, it will be more respectful of the French. At the same time, some macronists eagerly await a new poll giving, they say, the head of state far ahead of his rival in the presidential voting intentions. The knives are drawn.
"We can not be in the abstention from work", replies Emmanuel Macron from Poix-de-Picardie, announcing the color: "I have a mandate that lasts until May 2022." It is therefore "at work »Which he intends to show himself.
Here, focused on the school, which he wants to make a marker of his management of the Covid crisis.
President with Picardy roots put forward, when, "intimate pilgrimage" (his words), he meets former students of his grandmother "Manette", who was director of the establishment visited.
Evocation, also, of "timeless and eternal France" (a close friend), in Château-Thierry and Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne) - a city which he "does not want to be reduced to the National Front" which directs it.
Between tribute to Jean de La Fontaine, to the French language and to reading, erected "great national cause".
Encouragement and boos
And then there are the exchanges and walkabouts, ten days after the slap in the face in the Drôme. "Are you ok with the slap you got?" »A child launches at him. "It's not pleasant," concedes the Head of State. So many opportunities to discuss the health crisis, purchasing power, deindustrialisation. Or to respond to the abolition of the ISF, which marked his five-year term with a hot iron, to discuss the reform of the housing tax. So many messages. Who draw the rest? "He wants to embody all fields, all France", guesses an old acquaintance.
Since he has come to honor La Fontaine, "is it better to run or leave on time" asks a journalist, referring to the future presidential election? Dodge of the president, who summons Audiard: "You are the prey of fixed ideas", he replies, claiming "not to want to go back into the fray, the miasmas". The ping-pong is interrupted by the actor Fabrice Luchini, who accompanies him and does the show for a reading session of La Fontaine with students: “There is a very beautiful sentence from Nietzsche which corresponds well to this day:
Everything deep mind advances masked
. There, I believe that we are in front of very deep people ”, he pricks. "We are all very deep", adds the president ...
New walkabouts at the end of the day, his wife Brigitte Macron (at times acclaimed) at his side. There is encouragement, a star effect. Hoots, too. In Château-Thierry, Emmanuel Macron ends his journey by hoisting himself on the door of his car. From there, he waves to the crowd before leaving. In a country air. The next one, the presidential one. Before that, there is the Sunday poll ...