In an interview on the morning radio, the president said he was surprised by the growing tendency of people to ask what the vote meant. “It is useful; Yes. If I did not have a real mandate five years ago, I could not have done what I did. “Only the vote gives this legitimacy,” he told France Inter. “Many people sign up for causes, demands, movements – but do not necessarily vote. “The causes are important; but the profound changes we can make in society come when we vote.” Six days after the first round, which will select the last two candidates, polls still show Macron is the favorite to win the first round and face far-right National Rally Marin Le Pen in the second round on April 24, repeat of 2017. However, with Lepen narrowing the gap to 22% in the first round to Macron’s 28.5% and far-left Jean-Luc Melanson seven points behind, political analysts and pollsters say the result is far from the set conclusion. . Support for all far-right candidates now runs at around 35%. Macron admitted that during his five years in the Elysium, marked by the Covid pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine, he failed to persuade people to avoid political extremism. “I have not been able to convince people that the far right is not the answer,” he said. During the interview, Macron also reiterated his determination to reform the country’s pension system, a proposal that sparked more than a month of strikes in France in 2019-2020, the worst labor strike to hit the country since the previous reform effort. of 2010 pensions If re-elected, he said he would raise the retirement age from 62 to 65, with a few special exceptions, and introduce a minimum pension of € 1,100 (about 25 925) a month, which would be linked to the index. “I want to defend the system… in which those who work pay pensioners’ pensions. I want to defend this system, but we can not go on as things are. The system is in red. “Those with low pensions are struggling,” he said. “Everyone who tells you that we can keep pensions as they are today is lying. Today, on average, people do not stop working at 62, they continue until 63.5 years. “And several million of our citizens – many of them women who do hard work – work until the age of 67. There is a kind of hypocrisy in this.” It has promised reforms to health and education systems that have also caused unrest among workers. However, he said he had no plans to force 12-year-olds into apprenticeships, Mélenchon claimed. “This is fake news,” he said. Macron said he was shocked by the images of alleged massacres in Ukraine and called for tougher sanctions and “tough measures” against Moscow, saying there was clear evidence that the Russian military had committed war crimes. According to the election rules, the election campaign will stop at midnight on Friday, so the candidates have until then to convince the French voters. The far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, who is fourth or fifth in the polls, has stepped up his anti-immigration rhetoric, pledging to expel 1 million foreigners if elected. The center-right candidate of Les Républicains Valérie Pécresse, who is currently voting at the same level, says voters must revolt to avoid a second round of Le Pen against Macron, while the Socialist Party’s Ann Indalgo, who is currently languishing from the polls, urged “left-wing family” voters to support it.
