French President Emmanuel Macron has officially entered the race for the next presidency. The center politician announced his candidacy for the April elections on Thursday evening. The newspaper Liberation published a letter from Macron to the population on Thursday evening, which will also be published in the country’s printed newspapers on Friday.
The 44-year-old is applying for a second term in the Élysée Palace, which he has headed since 2017. In polls, Macron has been in first place for months with around 25 percent approval, ahead of right-wing Marine Le Pen, conservative Valérie Pécresse and right-wing extremist Éric Zemmour.
“In the last five years we have survived a multitude of trials together. Terrorism, pandemics, the return of violence, war in Europe: France has seldom faced such an accumulation of crises,” wrote Macron, who responded to the announcement of his candidacy in a speech because of the Ukraine war. “We haven’t achieved everything”, with today’s experience he would make some decisions differently. But the changes introduced during his tenure would have given many French people a better life and France more independence. The crises of the past two years have shown that this path must be continued.
Macron started his tenure as a young political star and promised a fresh political start. With numerous reforms, he wanted to redesign the allocation of study places and the labor market and create a fairer pension system. In terms of foreign policy, too, he advocated a renewal of the European Union. But there have always been mass demonstrations against Macron’s reform plans.
More than ever, opponents saw him as the embodiment of a political elite that lives detached from the concerns and problems of ordinary people. The protests by the yellow vests in particular put the president under pressure for weeks. The LREM (La République en Marche) party founded by Macron performed poorly in the 2020 local elections and the 2021 regional elections.