The stage is like a Hollywood movie. In the background, the Old Port and the blue Mediterranean Sea, outlined by old colonial mansions and guards, the magnificent and famous Notre Dame de la Garde basilica overlooking the city of Marseilles from above

In a white hexagon, bordered by the colors of France, in the park of the Napoleonic Palais du Pharo, candidate and president Emmanuel Macron, the youngest head of state of France after Napoleon, literally soaked his delicate shirt , under 28 degrees from Marseille, on Easter Saturday afternoon.

He tried to convince the French, to his most important action before the ballot of April 24, that it was not necessary to vote for the xenophobic and populist Marine Le Pen and that the future of France did not go through the extreme right.

He never once mentioned Marine Le Pen, the “elephant in the bazaar” or his party. He didn’t ask to whistle at him but “beat them” because France’s destiny was far from his sectarian or hateful ideas.

For Macron, today’s project is “reconcile before halving”, it is “invest in people, to fight the Republic of tomorrow, to avoid death”.

Green energy

Macron’s France was “a ecological power “who opted for “nuclear energy before gas or oil”, for micro generators and would give all the power to organic farming, to its farmers, who started the change, and to their countrymen.

Before “a devastating famine comes in 18 months, which will be“ the worst result of Ukraine’s war for Africa and the Middle East, ”he warns.France and its producers are there to deal with it, in a new production model.

There will be no transgenic soy imported from Brazil. Production will be local and biological. A resurgence in agriculture, which has already begun.

“It all started in Marseille” for Emmanuel Macron, who launched his presidential campaign here in 2017 and chose what he calls “the city of my heart” for his first presidential vacation with Brigitte, the first lady, in house of the Prefect.

He did not hide his love for Olympique, Boca Juniors from the Phoenician city. Its results could have stopped even the most important cabinet meeting, to the confusion of the first lady. Macron is a football fan and sports.

The vows of Jean Luc Mélenchon

Now he is seeking his re -election in the city where Jean Luc Mélenchon, head of France Insumisa, deputy and a sort of American Bernie Sanders of the failed youth of Marseilles won, finished third in the national election and is now the referee of the ballot .

A third of their votes will go to Macron, another to Le Pen and the latter to abstain.

“Mélancho”, as they call him in Marseille, called for “not giving a voice to Madame Le Pen”, without asking for a vote for Macron, after the first round. Contrary to what the Republican candidate, Valerie Pécresse, the socialist Anne Hidalgo or Janick Jadot, the environmentalist, along with former presidents, the socialist François Hollande and the conservative Nicolás Sarkozy, supported Macron.

Mélenchon won Marseille with 31.24 per cent in the first round, followed by Macron with 22.62 per cent, Marine Le Pen with 20.89 per cent and anti-Islamic candidate Eric Zemmour with 11.1 per cent. way.

In this balotage, Macron and Le Pen face off and the forces must be re -aligned. But in Marseille, “Ni” dominates. Neither one nor the other is the monument. Young people under 25 do not know who to vote for on this ballot.

If Macron came to the Pharo de Marseille it was to convince them that the exit was not Marine Le Pen or abstention.

An hour and a half of flirting, in the sunshine, in the face of a “social mélange” of rich and poor. Good families from the Côte d’Azur and children of Arab minorities and “blacks, Comoronenses, Algerians, Armenians, Italians, who are no longer cleaners like their parents or grandparents, but attended republican schools , educated and have companies or are entrepreneurs.

The multicultural Marseille, the Babylon of all languages, aroma and taste. the new francewhich Macron wants to include.

“Social Laboratory”

Marseille is Macron’s “social laboratory”. The city where he presented his “Grand Marseille”, a 1,500 million euro project, educational, cultural, structural, which will be a reflection of his “five-year term” and unify a society, the son of immigration , which Marine Le’s Pen’s party is already asking whose immigrants he wants to expel.

A lepenist cartoon, legacy of Jean Marie, the father, captain and torturer in the French war in Algeria, which included a ban on its halal and kosher food, when this Phoenician city brought together the children of the colonies of imperial France and the third Jewish community in the world after Israel, expel migrants, call a referendum to apply the death penalty.

Precariousness, poverty, dysfunctional or single-parent families, management failures, insecurity, corruption, drug trafficking. Those are the symptoms that the great Macronist project must eliminate in order to mentioned the police are back, the population is not afraid of “CAIDS” or the bosses of drug gangs and smugglers, who control social housing and its underground, from the northern neighborhoods to Castelane, a mythical “cité” and now unfathomable.

Renewal

Rather than attack the extreme right, Macron chose to reveal in front of his audience what the next five years of complete renewal would look like if he were re-elected. “What is at stake on April 24 is not a continuation but a reinvention,” the presidential candidate said.

“We must invent, fight, refound and find the ambition to respond to anger, fear, those voices that are silent,” he declared.

“You have the right to dream,” Macron told his supporters, from the lighthouse, in a very controlled action. Since France is on “attack alert”, they are trying to attack cafes in Paris and the candidate is the head of state, the security measures to get in are more than strict. Frisk, dog reviews of cameras, recorders, phones, computers.

At this meeting in Marseille on Saturday, the presidential candidate has a mission to bring together leftist voters and environmentalists. In particular, he proposed a Prime Minister in charge of “ecological planning”.

“The French economy will be ecological or not,” Macron said. Two other ministers will oversee territorial ecological and energy planning. The irony is that the beneficial vote invalidated the ecological vote in the first round of elections But for Macron has only three years to save the world from climate catastrophe.

Emmanuel Macron has multiplied calls to leftist and environmentalist voters, who are still numerous, because they do not want to block Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) in the second round of the presidential election.

To this end, the candidate for La République en Marche (LaREM) has announced several steps around climate, while paying tribute to the diversity that the city incorporates in the Mediterranean Sea.

ecological discourse

Ecology was undoubtedly the key word in his speech. “In five years we have done nothing about ecology, we have made decisions that have been postponed many times,” he said, citing the example of abandonment of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project, the Montagne d’Or in Guyana or the closure of coal-fired power plants.

The president extended his hand to the electorate of ecologists in the first round: “We heard the message, which a good part of our countrymen heard from us on April 10 at the polls, to put the environment at the center of our campaign. and the coming years for France, “he admitted.

The candidate wants to advance “an economy moving towards carbon neutrality by 2050”. He also associated companies with “good bosses who will be green and eco-responsible bosses.”

Marine Le Pen was not called by name at Saturday’s event. Allegations of “incompetent” or “climatosceptic” refer to him.

The musical framework of the act had a bullfighting atmosphere, with a mixture of pasodobles, a clarinet version of Bésame Mucho and “Olé” from the crowd. But this is far from a seemingly populist act: plenty of security, control, careful distribution of France’s flags and banners, and equal distribution of the rich and poor to the public.

In his shirt soaked, in the sunshine, the presidential candidate launched his last sentence: “The second round is an option for civilization.”

“Build a common future or put it in danger. Be faithful to what we are or break with our principles”, he said.

A distinctive binary ballot. On the one hand voters are convinced that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, can restore order, end illegal immigration and fight the cost-of-living crisis, with VAT cuts and measures to keep food prices low.

On the other hand, there are those who are preparing to give their support to Macron. Some, like Samal or Sylvie, because they approve. But many, like Ahmed or Albert, just want to prevent Le Pen from getting to the Elysee.

Pollsters say Macron has a 5-point lead. But for the first time since Le Pen’s party launched 50 years ago, his candidate has prospects to become president.

Marseille, special envoy

CB