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Here comes the President – who also wants to remain President.
Fireworks and 35,000 fans at La Defense Arena in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris.
It is Emmanuel Macron's only major campaign appearance, a good week before the first round of the presidential election on Sunday in a week.
And: Macron is fighting, talking about his successes and the projects he wants to implement in the next five years.
Britta Sandberg - DER SPIEGEL, Paris:
He looks tired, but he's determined and doesn't seem to automatically assume he's already won this election. Which the latest surveys now also suggest. Because the gap between him and the right-wing populist candidate Marine Le Pen has narrowed to five percentage points for the second ballot. Of course, this worries the Macron camp. And now he's going against it. It is about mobilizing now in the last eight days before the election. Those who are still undecided, those who do not yet know whether to vote for Macron, and those who do not yet know whether to vote at all.
A lot depends on what happens after the first ballot, when the field of applicants is reduced from the current seven to two and there is a likelihood of a runoff between Macron and LePen.
Britta Sandberg - DER SPIEGEL, Paris:
The pollsters are predicting a historic abstention. This year from 30 to 35 percent. This will be decisive for the second ballot on June 24th and could possibly play into the hands of Marine Le Pen, the right-wing populist candidate. The other question is how many voters for the right-wing nationalist Eric Zemmour would then vote for Le Pen and how many of the voters and supporters of the conservative candidate Valerie Pecresse, because she is unlikely to make it to the second ballot in the foreseeable future, could vote for Macron? A lot depends on that.
66.1 to 33.9 percent - that's how high Macron won against LePen in 2017. But this year the gap in the opinion polls is much smaller.
Le Pen in the Elysee Palace would be a nightmare scenario for many French people.
But also for Europe and the West.
Britta Sandberg - DER SPIEGEL, Paris: I
s an industrial accident conceivable? Is a President Marine Le Pen, a right-wing populist, possible in the Elysée? I still don't believe in it. I believe that the French will vote for Macron in the second ballot, as they did in 2017, albeit probably by a much narrower margin than was the case in 2017. Should Marine Le Pen be elected to the Elysée, then France would have an anti-European president. Someone who announced his intention to leave NATO's military command echelon and who would implement a la France d'abord policy, that is, France first and all other international affairs afterwards.