Amiens, May 17, 1993. Wearing a straw hat, arms crossed, 15-year-old Emmanuel Macron strode across a theater stage for his high school's end-of-year performance. In Jean Tardieu's play, La Comédie du Langage, he was playing the part of a scarecrow, who cried out, "Oh, how good it is to be reborn!" These images were from Pierre Hurel's documentary Emmanuel Macron, la Stratégie du Météore ("Emmanuel Macron, the Meteor Strategy"), broadcast on French television in 2016. Thirty years after his stage appearance, this is exactly what the president seems to have become in his own camp: a scarecrow who, by any means necessary, is seeking to be "reborn."
In the wake of the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal agreed to campaign for the legislative elections on June 30 and July 7 on one condition: that he take the lead, and that the unpopular president step aside. The Renaissance candidates also distanced themselves, removing Macron's photo from their election posters. At first, Macron seemed to agree to keep a low profile: "I won't be campaigning in the legislative elections," he insisted at his press conference on June 12. But he's been talking ever since. Everywhere – in Italy on the sidelines of the G7, in Brittany, at the Elysée Palace, for the Fête de la Musique – and all the time, at least several times a week.
On Sunday, the president published his "letter to the French" in the regional daily press, in which he justified his decision to dissolve the government. On Monday, he spent almost two hours on a podcast, Génération Do It Yourself, warning against the risk of "civil war," which he claimed the policies of the "two extremes" would lead to. This presidential omnipresence has been considered inappropriate in his own camp, where the governing coalition candidates measure the mistrust Macron now provokes among voters every day as they canvas the streets.
'Keep him quiet'
If the central bloc is dreaming of a "de-macronized" campaign, the left bloc is also calling for a "de-mélenchonized" campaign. Like Macron, Jean-Luc Mélenchon initially seemed to take account of the rejection he has received from a section of left-wing voters, who are tired of his strategy of "sound and fury," and who will not forgive him for his excesses or ambiguities – his statements on "residual" anti-Semitism in particular. But the leader of Le France Insoumise (LFI) has also changed his tune. He first indicated that he would not "impose himself" for the position of prime minister (June 12 on France 2), before suggesting the opposite 10 days later, asserting that he had the "firm intention" of "governing this country" (June 22 on France 5).
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