President of the Council of the European Union, interlocutor with other countries, President of the Republic and candidate for re-election. Emmanuel Macron’s agendas have been mixed up like never before in recent days, with the intensifying conflict in Ukraine and the formal start of his campaign for a second term.
If in diplomacy the results still seem distant, in the French electoral race the role of mediator has boosted his chances of staying in office for another five years.
Since Sunday (6), Macron has spoken by phone with Russian Vladimir Putin — for the 12th time this year — and met American Joe Biden with Prime Ministers Boris Johnson, of the United Kingdom, and Olaf Scholz, of Germany. On Tuesday (8), he had a video chat with Scholz and Chinese Xi Jinping. He later met, in Paris, with the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
Between one appointment and another, he participated, as a candidate, in a TV program and performed his first public act for reelection, in the city of Poissy. The war in Ukraine has entered France’s presidential campaign with a vengeance, whose first round of voting takes place in almost a month, on April 10.
According to an Ipsos poll released over the weekend, 90% of French people are worried or very worried about the situation in Ukraine. Not only because of the economic consequences of the war (90%), but also because of the possibility of an extension of the conflict (84%) and a nuclear attack (76%).
For voters, war has become the second most important issue when it comes to deciding the vote, after issues related to purchasing power – which also has to do with conflict, since the first effects must be felt in the gas and electricity prices.
In recent weeks, while leading negotiations with allies and, especially, with Russia, Macron has, at least publicly, left the campaign in the background and only confirmed that he would run for re-election on the 3rd, on the eve of the deadline. “I am a candidate to defend our values, which are threatened by world upheavals,” he said in a letter published in French newspapers.
The day before, as head of state, he gave a 14-minute speech on TV, in which he called the war an unprecedented challenge. “The rise in the price of oil and gas will have consequences for purchasing power. Given these social and economic effects, I have only one objective: to protect you.”
According to the Ipsos survey, centrist Macron has risen 6.5 percentage points since the beginning of February, with four percentage points just between the end of February and the beginning of March. With 30.5% of voting intentions, he is isolated in first place.
“An external threat tends to benefit those in office. Macron now enjoys the stature of a statesman, who negotiates with the world’s greatest leaders, unlike his competitors, with no experience in this type of situation,” he told sheet Fédérico Vacas, Deputy Director of Policy and Opinion at Ipsos.
According to Georgina Wright, director of the Europa program at the Montaigne Institute in Paris, while acting internationally may be qualifying Macron for reelection, it is the domestic effects that voters take into account. “When people vote at the ballot box, they don’t think about foreign policy. What there is now is a legitimate concern about the impact of conflict on gas and energy bills and, consequently, on their daily lives,” she says.
In the same Ipsos poll, the main opponents, Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, both from the far right, swung negatively and have, respectively, 14.5% and 13%. Jean-Luc Mélenchon (left) rose three points, reaching 12%, and Valérie Pécresse (center-right) appears with 11.5%.
In recent weeks, while Macron has spoken with other leaders, rivals have tried to explain to voters past situations of proximity to Russia. Le Pen’s campaign even released a pamphlet about her trajectory, in which, among the photos, there was a handshake, from 2017, with Putin. Three years earlier, her party had obtained a loan of around 9 million euros from a bank in the country.
Zemmour was even more explicit, having said, before the conflict escalated, that Russia was a more reliable ally than Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2018, he claimed to dream of a “French Putin”. In recent days, he has said that France should not take in refugees from Ukraine.
“French politics has a certain proximity to Russia, both on the left and on the right. Now these politicians find themselves in a difficult position, because they have to do a complete maneuver,” says Tara Varma, director of the Parisian section of the European Council of Foreign Affairs.
In recent days, Le Pen and Zemmour have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, illustrating, according to Varma, how the campaign has changed since the start of the war. “What seems to be the case is that the French want someone in the presidency who can deal with the crisis, which gives Macron a huge advantage,” he says.
The president also reaps the fruits of a vision that, over the course of his term, has become something of a mantra — the need for a sovereign Europe, both in defensive and economic terms.
The theme is at the heart of the program of the temporary presidency that France occupies in the Council of the European Union, between January and June, and of the meeting of leaders that takes place this Thursday and Friday, in Versailles.
“For the last five years he has been talking about how a stronger Europe makes a stronger France and how we need to review our dependency and our supply chain. In a way, the conflict echoes that message”, comments Wright, from the Montaigne Institute.
She notes that Macron pursued a risky diplomatic move before the invasion of Ukraine, which could have different repercussions for the campaign. “While invasion was a possibility, the vast majority believed it unlikely. When Macron went to Moscow to speak with Putin [no começo de fevereiro], he took risks. If Russia had not invaded the country, but only annexed the breakaway regions, the result would probably have been considered a failure of French diplomacy.”
In the face of the surprising escalation, what is reinforced, he assesses, is the image of Macron as the leader who is still speaking directly to Putin. Varma agrees that what was considered a vulnerability of the European leader – his hand reaching out to Putin, most clearly since 2019, when the two met in France to discuss crises in Syria and Ukraine itself – has become a strength, in the context of the invasion, placing the French president in the position of the West’s main mediator.
“It is Putin himself who has sought out Macron the last few times. In a way, Macron is a channel of communication between Russia and the European Union and between Russia and the West,” he says, noting that this also happens due to the void left by Angela Merkel, who she maintained, in her 16 years as Germany’s prime minister, a good personal relationship with Putin.
A leadership role from which, according to the expert, Macron could gradually move away in the coming weeks, as the election campaign draws him more intensely into the domestic debate. In this scenario, naturally the role of main mediator with Russia will fall to Scholz.
If Macron’s presence in the second round, on April 24, is taken for granted, the definition of his rival still seems hazy, with four names in contention for the other seat. According to Ipsos, Macron would beat everyone in the final vote, with percentages between 59% (against Le Pen) and 67% (against Mélenchon).
“In the current context, Macron is more than ever a big favorite. The question is which candidate he will face and how will the impact on political recomposition in France”, says Vacas, from Ipsos.
