Despite several road trips marking the end of his first term President Emmanuel Macron has since consulted extensively to get his majority ready for the legislative elections of June 12-19 and to plan his next action.
His agenda continued to include the war in Ukraine, and Europe's ambitious speech on 9 May in Strasbourg about the future of the European Project.
After a quiet Ascension weekend at his residence in Bregancon, in the Var, the Head will return to Brussels on Monday and Tuesday for a European summit. Then he will travel by land in France. His entourage is denying any immobility.
Bernard Sananes (president of Elabe) said that he was surprised by the "difference between the will of Emmanuel Macron to govern up to the last minute and the impression that it is slow to start today".
He was not re-elected at end of cohabitation like Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. His second five-year term fits perfectly in the continuity of his first.
Bernard Sananes said, "But we don’t feel this new impetus"
Four weeks after the election, the appointment of a new government was completed. This is another long time that left Jean-Luc Melenchon, his union of the Left, almost at the front of stage. Experts believe that the president wanted to play for time to avoid exposing the new team too soon before legislative elections.
Benjamin Morel, professor at the university Paris 2, says that "it makes it possible to not give way to certain attacks, to populate void and then to have an effect on the breath" with the announcement by the new government. He says that this view has been diminished "like a trickle" during this "period relative sluggishness".
It was widely considered a government of continuity and change, as Elisabeth Borne's heavyweights were already present at Act I. According to an Ifop-Fiducial poll published by Sud-Radio on Friday, 58% of the composition does not excite French people.
This sluggishness concerns the majority two weeks before the legislative election. "There is no political leader (direction, editor’s note)", says a parliamentary source at La Republique en Marche. He calls for "step up"
The rape accusations against Damien Abad, the Minister of Solidarity, were a LR war prize that was intended to capture right-wing voters. Abad says it pollutes everything, especially in the Borne sequence," according to the parliamentary source. Even though the Paris prosecutor's office indicated that they are not opening a preliminary probe, this does not mean that Abad is being treated as a criminal.
Voting intentions show that there is no "dynamic", which suggests a smaller majority for the president's party (295-335 seats out 577, according to OpinionWay poll by Les Echos of May 25,).
The opposition is still rubbing its eyes. Marine Le Pen (RN), who was present at Saturday's campaign in Henin-Beaumont, Pas-de-Calais, referred to a "power vacuum". She said that "all of this is extremely slow" despite the fact that purchasing power is crucial and urgent for many French citizens.
