After some announcements on the coronavirus health crisis, Emmanuel Macron’s speech on Tuesday quickly turned into a presidential program for 2022. The need for pension reform, creation of new nuclear power plants, strengthening of controls on unemployed and the importance of the value of work… The ideas of the candidate president leaned to the right of the political spectrum, to the point that Valérie Pécresse, candidate for the nomination of the Republicans, spoke on Wednesday of an “attempted hold-up” of ‘Emmanuel Macron on the ideas of his political camp.
However, there is a theme dear to the right that the president has not addressed, and whose name was not mentioned on Tuesday: immigration. A sudden demarcation with the forces of the right, confirmed this Wednesday by the interview of the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin, who regretted on Europe 1 “the obsession” of certain candidates for this topic. According to Bruno Cautrès, researcher at CNRS and teacher at Sciences-Po, the president is not making immigration a taboo, but is waiting for the right moment to talk about it.
Why was immigration, a topic popular with many right-wing candidates, not addressed during the presidential address?
The president engaged in a complicated exercise in his speech, having to preserve his desire to appear left and right. The center left represents a significant part of its electorate which it cannot do without. However, even by concealing the theme of immigration, everyone emphasizes this Wednesday that the speech was very right-wing, notably addressing the value of work, pointing out certain unemployed people, evoking energy independence, etc. To speak in addition to immigration would have been the drop too much for his center-left electorate, who would then have agreed that the president only addressed himself to the right.
Can the president avoid this subject during the presidential campaign, in order to distance himself from the right?
When one aspires to the function of head of state, one cannot not address this subject. To speak of immigration is to speak both of borders, of international policy, and in particular of European policy – a subject dear to Emmanuel Macron -, of national sentiment, etc. A presidential candidate cannot ignore such an important and structural subject on the role of national unity, a fortiori an outgoing presidential candidate, who will have to be accountable on his balance sheet.
Does Eric Zemmour phagocyte the subject to such an extent that the other candidates struggle to tackle it, knowing that they can never be as extreme as him?
Immigration is one of the biggest concerns of the French, a candidate cannot ignore, and even less abandon this theme in front of another – presumed – candidate. Admittedly, Eric Zemmour monopolizes the subject for the moment, but precisely for the presidential one, the other policies will have to take back part of it from him. This is already what The Republicans are doing.
Will immigration end up becoming one of Emmanuel Macron’s themes again?
He will inevitably end up talking about it – he has never shown a taboo on this subject. He just has every interest in distilling his right-wing ideas as they go along instead of cutting down all his cards at once. In addition, the timing would have been unsuccessful, as the issue of immigration is effectively totally appropriated by Eric Zemmour for the moment. Here too, he has an interest in waiting for certain other candidates to take more ownership of this question before joining this debate, which will be one of the themes for 2022.
When will be the right time to talk about it?
From the moment he officially announces his candidacy for the presidential election, he will not be able to speak of immigration. If he wants to be a credible candidate, he must discuss this theme and his projects as soon as possible after his announcement. There is no doubt that in 2022, Emmanuel Macron will talk massively about immigration.