On Thursday, Emmanuel Macron attended his first major election campaign event before the presidential election. It happened north of Paris.

– We have to work harder, Macron said at the event attended by about 300 journalists.

The first round of elections is April 10, and if neither candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the two main candidates will meet for a second round two weeks later.

A statement from the incumbent president that he was a long-awaited candidate, and it wasn’t until March 3 that it became clear that Macron would be running for re-election.

With the slogan “Avec vous” on the big screen behind him, which translates to “with you”, Macron spoke of his two most important political goals: full employment and reform of the pension system.

[ Macron sier at han vil stille til gjenvalg ]

Work and retirement

At the age of 39, Macron was elected in 2017 as president of France from the party he founded the previous year, called La République en Marche! – in the future Norwegian Republic!

In an election campaign speech in Paris, Macron admitted he had not fulfilled his 2017 election promise to reform the pension system. If he is re-elected in April, he promises to finish the job, and change his retirement age from the current 62 to 65.

In addition, he made three big promises:

* Reform of the benefits system which means that the unemployed have to spend 15 to 20 hours a week on work or training.

* Establish a common centralized system for social benefits, which will include, inter alia, benefits for unemployment, housing and childcare benefits. Such a change would affect up to 20 million French people.

* Increased public investment to 50 billion euros per year, which is equivalent to nearly 500 billion Norwegian kroner. The money will be used for everything from health and education, to defense and new technology.

[ Valgene som venter i 2022 – fra Frankrike til USA ]

Lack of an election campaign?

Macron has eleven challengers in the presidential election. His main opponent is again the far-right radical Marine Le Pen, whom Macron won in the previous election with 66.1 percent of the vote in the second round, against Le Pen’s 33 percent.

Other strong candidates were radical right-wing Eric Zemmour, conservative Valérie Pécresse, and radical left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Political opponents have struggled for attention because of the Ukraine war, and some have criticized Macron for not taking part in the election campaign until now.

“The president wants to be re-elected without actually being a candidate, and without campaigning, debating, or competing for ideas,” Senate President Gerard Larcher of the Conservative Party said Tuesday.

He told Le Figaro newspaper that the legitimacy of the election would be questioned if the election campaign was not carried out.

[ Frankrike har fått enda en presidentkandidat ]

Lift

Macron’s presidency has been marked by protests from the Yellow West movement and demonstrations against the coronation measures and high electricity prices.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the president has played a key role in persuading President Putin to end the war. In the past five weeks, he has spent more than 20 hours talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It appears to have had a favorable effect on opinion polls, as is often the case in times of crisis for incumbent leaders.

Since war broke out on February 24, his support has increased by 5 percentage points, and is now at 30 percent, according to the latest poll from gallupinstituttet BVA. In the poll, Macron is followed by far-right radical Marine Le Pen with 18 percent.

If the results are equally good in the election, Macron will likely win the first round of the presidential election by a good margin.

[ Voldelig da Zemmour holdt første valgkampmøte i Frankrike ]