Emmanuel Macron, not yet officially a candidate for 2022 but campaigning in the “territories” – archyde

Singing Vierzon, here’s the test! Céline could have written. Jacques Brel stuck to it. Nevertheless: the sub-prefecture of Cher is exemplary of these territories which have suffered “Bite of deindustrialisation”, to use an expression dear to Emmanuel Macron. The farm equipment factory that had been the pride of the city for a century and a half closed in the 1990s. Many shops then went out of business, offering the image of disused streets, when commercial areas surroundings, they took their ease.

The town, led by the elected Communist Nicolas Sansu, provided battalions to the movement of “yellow vests” in the winter of 2018. A tag in white letters is spread over a bus shelter: “RIC”, memory of the citizens’ initiative referendum then demanded by the demonstrators. A facetious mind has added a red “e” in front to form the first name “Eric”, in reference to the far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour. A man who assures ” understand “ the anger of the “yellow vests” and made one of their muses, Jacline Mouraud, rise to the platform of the meeting to launch his presidential campaign, Sunday, December 5, in Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis).

Emmanuel Macron has not yet declared himself a candidate for re-election for the April 2022 election. This does not prevent him, Tuesday, December 7, from walking the streets of the city as if he is was. With the difference that the center of Vierzon, cordoned off by the police, seems almost empty. The Head of State wants to demonstrate, according to his entourage, that he is “Attentive to the French and their needs, as close as possible to their concerns”. So here he is walking up the Avenue de la République, stopping in front of the shoe and clothing stores, the chocolatiers, or to have a glass of white wine at the café with the few inhabitants present.

No minister accompanies him. The tenant of the Elysée is looking for a “Real contact with the population”, according to the deputy (La République en Marche, LRM) of Dear François Cormier-Bouligeon. “France isn’t just Paris, it’s also Berry”, assures the one who was the deputy chief of staff at Bercy of the former Minister of the Economy.

A phone call from Joe Biden in Châteaumeillant

From Marseille to the Aisne, via the North, Emmanuel Macron has been increasing his trips since the start of the school year to respond to the lawsuits in disconnection and arrogance that have been brought to him for four and a half years. The opportunity to praise the various plans put in place during the five-year term for the “territories”, such as “Action coeur de ville” or “Small towns of tomorrow”. In the evening, he attended the municipal council of Châteaumeillant (Cher), a village of 1,700 inhabitants. Not without having previously received, from the mayor’s office, a phone call from US President Joe Biden on the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

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