“It’s an emergency.” On the popular lands of Hauts-de-France which elected her, Marine Le Pen accused her opponent Emmanuel Macron on Friday of doing “nothing” in favor of purchasing power, a major axis of her campaign that she wants further amplify after the spike in energy prices. “Macron should get out once and for all,” says Justine, 28, red hair, on the Armentières market (North) before taking a selfie with Marine Le Pen. The young woman, who only gives her first name and who works in a fast food restaurant and earns 857 euros per month, believes that the candidate president “helps foreigners when we are in real trouble”. “At the end of the month, we can’t get out of it,” she laments.
Between the stalls, the contender for the Elysee Palace multiplies hugs and selfies. On energy prices, “the situation is out of control and the government is not offering anything”, she accuses, also castigating the retirement at 65 envisaged by Emmanuel Macron, which will cause “social carnage”. If elected, the one who presents herself as the “candidate of concrete solutions” promises that the liter of diesel will drop by 44 cents and that of gasoline by 34 cents.
“standing” people
Something to please its popular electorate, who are beginning to take an interest in the presidential election and who often live in rural or outlying areas, where a car is essential to go to work and for which a liter of petrol or diesel now costs more than two euros, while food prices are also rising. “Never crack,” encourages Maryvonne, a 70-year-old retiree who also only gives her first name. “Like the French people, straight, strong and upright”, replies Marine Le Pen.
To obtain this drop in prices at the pump, the far-right candidate proposes to reduce the VAT on electricity, gas and fuel from 20% to 5.5%. An idea launched in the fall which allowed him to differentiate himself from his rival Éric Zemmour, accused of remaining focused on immigration and which attracts a more bourgeois electorate. Cost of this measure: 12 billion euros, which the candidate intends to finance by “savings” on immigration, fraud, or France’s contribution to the EU. But with the energy shock of the war in Ukraine, Marine Le Pen drew another proposal consisting in canceling, as long as the barrel exceeds 100 dollars, the increases in the TICPE (domestic consumption tax on energy products) between 2015 and 2018.
yellow vests
Those decided precisely by his opponent Emmanuel Macron, when he was minister then president, and the last of which had contributed to the emergence of the movement of yellow vests, she underlines. Marine Le Pen thus intends to differentiate herself from the outgoing president who, in the midst of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, soars in the polls above 30%, when she consolidates her second position but far enough, at 18%. “You have to help the Ukrainians but you also have to help the poor in your country,” says Kathy Dal, 50, distributing leaflets in the wake of Marine Le Pen.
The candidate regrets that Valérie Pécresse for LR and her rival Éric Zemmour, in their “pathetic” debate the day before, did not speak of “the terrible worsening of purchasing power”. She finds them “completely disconnected from the well-being” of the French and that does not make her “do not want” to debate with them. At a meeting in Bouchain, in the North, on Friday evening, after visiting shops in Denain, she will praise these measures at the same time as tax cuts for the self-employed.
In the spirit of helping the “small” against the “big”, the national-populist candidate promised Thursday to “tax” the oil groups, which “are doing very good business”, according to her with the price increases of the fuels. A way for the RN presidential candidate to forget her past closeness with Vladimir Putin, whose military offensive in Ukraine she condemns, while continuing to criticize the sanctions.