3, March 2022
Macron officially declares his candidacy in 2022 French presidential election 0
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced he would run for a second term in the April French presidential election, seeking a mandate to steer the euro zone’s second-largest economy through the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Macron announced his bid for the 2022 presidential election with a “letter to the French” which began with the recent challenges the country has faced during his first five-year term.
“Over the past five years, we have faced many trials together. Terrorism, the pandemic, war in Europe: rarely has France been faced with such an accumulation of crises,” the letter, which was published in several newspapers, began.
“We have not succeeded in everything,” Macron continued. “There are choices that, with the experience I have acquired, I would no doubt make differently. But the transformations undertaken during this mandate have enabled many of us to live better, and France to gain in independence. And the crises we have been experiencing for the past two years show that this is the path that must be followed.”
The letter then stated his intent to run for a second term. “I am asking for your confidence for a new mandate as president of the Republic. I am a candidate to…respond to the challenges of the century. I am a candidate to defend our values…I am a candidate to continue to prepare the future of our children and our grandchildren.”
The French president, who has been at the centre of diplomacy over Ukraine, left his official declaration to the last minute with the deadline set by the authorities at 6 pm (1700 GMT) on Friday.
While there was always little suspense about the 44-year-old’s intentions, his candidacy announcement was repeatedly delayed because of the crisis in eastern Europe that has seen Macron take a prominent role in diplomatic talks.
Nearly a month before the April 10 first round of the presidential election Macron has yet to engage in any official campaigning and scrapped a rally planned in Marseille this weekend due to the Ukraine crisis.
Rivals ‘boxing on their own’
Ahead of Friday’s deadline for candidates to stand, polls widely show him as the front runner, with the war turning the attention to foreign policy rather than the domestic issues favoured by his opponents.
“In a crisis, citizens always get behind the flag and line up behind the head of state,” said Antoine Bristielle, a public opinion expert at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a Paris think tank.
“The other candidates are inaudible. In every media, all anyone is talking about is the invasion,” he told AFP.
One ruling party MP told AFP this week the Ukraine crisis meant that Macron’s rivals were “boxing on their own”, while several polls have shown his personal ratings rising.
The former investment banker admitted in a national address on Wednesday night that the crisis had “hit our democratic life and the election campaign” but promised “an important democratic debate for the country” would take place.
The latest IFOP poll for Paris Match, LCI and Sud Radio on Thursday showed Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen leading in the first round and qualifying for the run-off with Macron getting 28 percent and Le Pen securing 17 percent.
The figures for the April 24 runoff showed Macron securing 56.7 percent of the vote against Le Pen.
Source: REUTERS
10, March 2022
Macron welcomes EU leaders for Ukraine crisis 0
EU leaders gathered at Versailles for a two-day summit starting Thursday on how to address Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid calls from Kyiv for a fast-tracked path to membership in the European bloc.
EU leaders doused Ukraine’s hopes gaining membership of the European Union quickly on Thursday, as they met to urgently address the fallout of the Russia’s invasion.
The meeting at the palace of Versailles was set to be the high point of France’s six-month EU presidency, but President Emmanuel Macron is instead leading a crisis summit following Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s brutal disruption of decades of stability in Europe.
The Ukraine war and the EU’s energy supply were to dominate the two-day meeting, with leaders sitting down for dinner in the same Hall of Mirrors where Western allies carved out a new map of Europe in 1919 after World War I.
“Europe will change even faster and stronger with the war (in Ukraine)”, Macron said as he greeted his counterparts at the former residence of France’s Sun King, Louis XIV.
The 27 heads of state and government met as fighting raged for a 15th day in Ukraine, with an outcry over the bombing of a maternity hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a Russian “war crime”. Moscow denied carrying it out, calling it a “staged provocation” by Ukraine.
Macron dubbed it a “disgraceful act of war”, with leaders from across the bloc condemning the atrocity and Spain calling it a “war crime” that demanded punishment.
The conflict has seen a swell of support in the EU for Ukrainian President Zelensky, but leaders used the talks to reiterate that a speedy track to membership was impossible.
“There is no such thing as a fast track,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said as he arrived for the talks.
“I want to focus on what can we do for Volodymyr Zelensky tonight, tomorrow, and EU accession of Ukraine is something for the long term, if at all,” he added.
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned against giving Kyiv the impression that “everything can happen overnight”.
‘Biggest issue’
Even before the war, Macron’s ambition for the summit was to lay down a path to strengthen Europe’s stature on the world stage.
The issue took greater significance with Russia’s war on the bloc’s eastern edge and leaders were to explore ways to shore up Europe’s self-reliance in a starkly more dangerous world, especially on energy.
The conflict has seen energy prices skyrocket, threatened the economy and sparked a pressing discussion on where Europeans can turn for gas and oil.
The EU imports about 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia with Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, especially dependent on the energy flow, along with Italy and several central European countries.
About a quarter of the EU’s oil imports also come from Russia.
Europe’s dependency on Russian energy even caused the first crack in the West’s unified response to Putin’s aggression, with the EU this week shying away from a ban on Russian oil imports implemented by the United States and Britain.
According to a draft of the meeting’s final declaration, the 27 leaders will cautiously agree to “phase out” the bloc’s dependency on Russian gas, oil and coal.
‘Resolutely invest’
The EU leaders will also try to advance on ways Europe can gain independence in highly sensitive sectors, including semiconductors, food production and most notably defence.
Collective security in the European Union is primarily handled by the US-led NATO alliance, but France, the EU’s biggest military power, would like the bloc to play a bigger role.
Since Russia’s belligerence against its pro-EU neighbour, bloc members have approved a total of half a billion euros in defence aid to Ukraine.
Berlin dramatically broke with long-standing doctrine when it announced it will plough 100 billion euros into national defence.
In view of the challenges, “we must resolutely invest more and better in defence capabilities and innovative technologies”, the leaders were expected to say.
Source: AFP