Given the winner on Sunday evening by the polls, the outgoing president chose the south-west, accompanied by Prime Minister Jean Castex, as the end point of a presidential campaign started late because of the war in Ukraine.
In Figeac, in the Lot, a rural department which voted massively for him five years ago, Mr. Macron chained the walkabouts and embarked on a long plea in favor of his reform project, while defending its record, in particular the “whatever it takes” in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It’s good, he was optimistic, not in the insults as the other camp does”, welcomed Carole Bisien, a sympathizer, at the end of the speech delivered under the hall.
Challenged by a banner deployed on a balcony where one could read, “When everything is private, we will be deprived of everything”, the president-candidate replied: “Congratulations on being in a democracy. I hope that will be able to continue because, on April 24, if it is not the case, it will be another choice”.
“We will not unite the country by promising everything and financing nothing”, he tackled, warning that “nothing is settled” and asking his supporters to “mobilize until the last second”.
If he is re-elected, Jean Castex will remain Prime Minister at least all next week, which will be “a week of transition” because “we need continuity” and “a very reactive management of current affairs”.
Previously, taking stock of the in-between rounds, he had attacked his rival claiming that she had managed to “advance masked”, while “the fundamentals of the far right are there”.
“Millions of our compatriots came to her party and her project because she gave the impression that she was responding to the problem of purchasing power. But her responses are not viable,” he said. in the morning on France Inter.
“Ms. Le Pen is the heiress of a father, a party and an ideology which was also based on a lot of anti-Semitism,” he further accused.
A total of 2.5 million proxies have been established
The RN candidate has chosen her Hauts-de-France stronghold to complete her campaign, also multiplying crowds and exchanges with residents.
Traveling to Etaples (Pas-de-Calais), a stone’s throw from Le Touquet, a holiday resort for the Macron spouses, she notably denounced her opponent’s plan to push back the retirement age to 65, judging that ‘in the event of re-election of the outgoing president, the “French will take it for life”.
The choice posed to the French: “It’s Macron or France”, she warned on the local market before meeting caregivers in a hospital in Berck.
Marine Le Pen seeks to defeat the “republican front”, actioned in 2002 against her father then in 2017 against herself to block the far right, and pleads for an “anti-Macron front” on Sunday.
“It’s not the polls that make the election”, she assured while she is given the loser, between 43% and 45%, according to the latest opinion polls, against 55% to 57% for Emanuel Macron.
“It’s going to be tight” on Sunday, estimated between two aisles Pascal Blondel, tricolor hat on his head, 52-year-old gardener and RN activist. “We must fire Macron. He has put France in so much misery”, launched this former “yellow vest”.
At the end of this tough campaign, the two rivals fear above all a demobilization of voters. Especially since the three school zones will be on vacation, with in particular the start of spring break for the Paris region.
The challenge in these last hours is to mobilize the abstainers, convince the undecided and seduce the electorate of the leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the largest reservoir of votes at the end of the first round (nearly 22%) .
Between January 3 and Friday April 22, 2022 inclusive, a total of 2.5 million powers of attorney were issued, 70% of which through the Maprocuration teleprocedure, according to the Ministry of the Interior. There are currently 1.9 million valid proxies for the second round.
At midnight, the two candidates will no longer be able to speak or act: public meetings, distribution of leaflets and digital propaganda of the candidates will be prohibited. And no poll can be published before the first estimates released on Sunday at 8:00 p.m.
In Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and French Polynesia, the ballot has been brought forward to Saturday due to the time difference.