PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron borrowed lines from the far right for a press conference this week designed to relaunch his sputtering second term. Speaking to journalists Tuesday in his first major Elysee Palace set piece in years, Macron said his “clear line was that France should remain France”. “France should remain the nation of common sense, resistance and the Enlightenment,” he added.

It was the latest shift in emphasis from a president struggling in his final term to ensure his centrist legacy outlasts him in the face of a surging far right. Macron’s “France should remain France” line famously featured on posters for hard-right firebrand Eric Zemmour during the last presidential election in 2022. Zemmour is a proponent of “great replacement” conspiracy theories about non-white immigration into Europe.

When the same slogan was adopted by a contender for leadership of the conservative Republicans party in 2018, Macron’s minister Aurore Berge excoriated him, saying “you might as well add the logo of the National Front” — Marine Le Pen’s anti-Islam, anti-immigrant far-right party since renamed the National Rally (RN).

Macron also picked up themes dear to the far right in detailed policy proposals Tuesday including a trial run for school uniforms and the possible extension of a “national service” program to all pupils. And the president offered further proposals to tackle falling birth rates, another question dear to the heart of France’s far right. Socialist party lawmaker Arthur Delaporte accused him of taking a “purely reactionary” turn.

‘Kind of homage’ to Le Pen

Macron “is clearly in a political showdown with the RN,” said constitutional expert Benjamin Morel. “Your official opposition is your best ally, because you actually have no voter overlap with them, and by setting up a kind of duopoly, you set up a concentration of voters around yourself,” he added.

The RN, led by Le Pen — who Macron defeated in 2017 and 2022 — and her young lieutenant Jordan Bardella, looks set to top the poll in June’s European Parliament election. Macron branded the RN the party of “lies” and “collective impoverishment” Tuesday. “At the same time, he’s not talking about values ... there’s a kind of normalization of the RN among center-right voters” who are in Macron’s sights, Morel said.

“They might not consider voting for them, but they don’t see them as the devil,” he added. Macron has danced around the political spectrum since first rising as an economy minister under Socialist former president Francois Hollande. As recently as 2022, he declared that “our lives are worth more than their profits” in a left-inflected sally against big business. “Who can believe him anymore?” asked Socialist party leader Olivier Faure.

After passing an immigration law late last year that skewed sharply to right-wing priorities, “how can (Macron) come and say he’s the one who will shut out the far right?” he added. Prominent RN lawmaker Julien Odoul was equally blunt. For him, Macron’s press conference was “a kind of homage” to the far right, “moving towards our proposals and our solutions”. — AFP