The Campaign for the European Elections in France
Résumé
1st lines: There were good reasons to think that ‘this time it will be different’ – that this time the campaign for the European elections would attract attention from the media and voters in France. These elections are indeed the first electoral test for President Macron, nearly two years after his unexpected success. Moreover, this young president decided to play openly a pro-European card during the 2007 presidential campaign and since. He advanced an ambitious agenda for the EU – for instance in a speech at La Sorbonne in September 2017. He staged himself as the leader of the pro-EU camp, by contrast to populist leaders inside France as well as outside. See for instance this video, broadcast by the French government in October 2018, where images of Salvini and Orban are shown in order to call for voting to the European elections with this slogan: “In May 2019 Europe will change: you should decide in which direction”.