French right-winger Valerie Pecresse was a rank outsider in the race for the presidency just a month ago, but with under 100 days to the election she is seen as the best-placed challenger to Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n
Backed by her Republicans party which has deep roots nation-wide, the 54-year-old is bidding to be France's first woman president with a slogan that promises \"restored French pride\".<\/p>\n
During a trip to the south on Thursday, the head of the greater Paris region made clear she planned to campaign on an unabashed right-wing platform of law and order.<\/p>\n
While promising to take a \"Karcher\" power-hose to crime-ridden urban ghettos in France, she accused President Macron of being soft on drug dealers and \"complicit\" in a rise in violence.<\/p>\n
\"I don't want any more areas without the rule of law, without France,\" she told an elderly crowd of a few hundred people in the town of Cavaillon where drug-related gun crime is a source of concern.<\/p>\n
Saying she didn't care about \"political correctness\", Pecresse declared: \"Yes, I can say it: There is a link between delinquency and immigration.\"<\/p>\n
By focusing on identity, crime and immigration, she is targeting areas where she views Macron as vulnerable -- and borrowing from the playbook of far-right candidates Marine Le Pen and her rival Eric Zemmour.<\/p>\n
\"There's not an increase in the fear of crime, there's an increase in crime,\" Pecresse said, describing drug-dealers taking over tower blocks and teachers trembling in front of their classes.<\/p>\n
Surveys of voters show that immigration and crime are indeed among their top concerns, but below the rising cost of living and jobs.<\/p>\n
Pro-business Macron is banking on voters crediting him with falling unemployment and rising wages, as well as his handling of the Covid-19 crisis.<\/p>\n
Only days after causing an uproar by saying he wanted to \"piss off\" the unvaccinated, the 44-year-old is to head south next Monday to Nice for his own trip focused on security.<\/p>\n
Story continues<\/p>\n
- 'Dangerous' -<\/p>\n
France goes to the polls on April 10 and 24 under an electoral system that sees the top two candidates in the first round advance to a second-round run-off where the winner must garner more than 50 percent.<\/p>\n
The country is widely seen as deeply divided, worried about its future and place in the world, and engaged in a culture war over identity and the colonial past.<\/p>\n
For all of Macron's term, polls have consistently suggested this year's election would likely be a re-run of the 2017 vote that saw Macron beat Le Pen in the second round.<\/p>\n
But the emergence of Zemmour, an anti-Islam television pundit, as well as Pecresse's clinching of the Republicans party nomination in early December, have cast sudden doubt on Le Pen's future.<\/p>\n
\"We realise now that Le Pen was far more fragile than we thought only a few months ago,\" Bruno Jeanbart, vice-president of polling group OpinionWay, told AFP.<\/p>\n
All polls currently indicate that Macron would win the first round of the election on a score of around 26 percent, with Pecresse and Le Pen battling for the second spot in the run-off on around 16 percent each.<\/p>\n
The highly fragmented left trails far behind.<\/p>\n
Macron is shown winning the second-round for the moment, but one poll in December suggested he would lose to Pecresse -- an outlier for the moment, but it rang alarm bells in the ruling party.<\/p>\n
\"Pecresse is definitely the more dangerous one for him (Macron),\" commented Dominique Reynie, a political scientist who heads the Fondation pour l'innovation politique, a Paris-based think-tank.<\/p>\n
- Dynamics -<\/p>\n
Macron and his team have long-practised arguments against Le Pen, accusing her of playing to the racist and anti-Semitic political fringe, as well as raising concerns about her competence.<\/p>\n
Pecresse, who has described herself as \"one-third Margaret Thatcher and two-thirds Angela Merkel\", presents a different target.<\/p>\n
She is from the mainstream right, a former higher education minister with experience of running France's biggest urban area since 2015.<\/p>\n
\"They're having difficulties with her,\" Jeanbart said. \"I think part of the problem is that they weren't expecting it.\"<\/p>\n
Despite her strengths, in a campaign overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic, \"You can't say that there's a real dynamic,\" according to Reynie. \"I don't sense that she's in the process of lighting up the campaign.\"<\/p>\n
She's not seen as a polished public speaker, nor a natural grassroots campaigner, while the Republicans party struggles to appeal beyond its core demographic of wealthy, elderly conservatives.<\/p>\n
\"Our polling doesn't enable us to know who's going to make it to the second round,\" Jeanbart said. \"The margins are too small.\"<\/p>\n
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Macron faces right-wing threat as France frets about crime - Yahoo News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" French right-winger Valerie Pecresse was a rank outsider in the race for the presidency just a month ago, but with under 100 days to the election she is seen as the best-placed challenger to Emmanuel Macron. Backed by her Republicans party which has deep roots nation-wide, the 54-year-old is bidding to be France's first woman president with a slogan that promises \"restored French pride\". During a trip to the south on Thursday, the head of the greater Paris region made clear she planned to campaign on an unabashed right-wing platform of law and order. Continue reading