Nearly two months after announcing his candidacy, Bruno Le Maire continues to “crisscross” France and is gaining points in the polls. At the end of February, the former Minister of Agriculture broke an open secret: yes, at 46, he wants to be President of the Republic.
And he is “here to win,” to “be president,” he repeatedly states.
For two months, “there is momentum,” estimates Bruno Le Maire. But “we are only at the beginning of the campaign,” he adds. So, he continues to “plow” the territory, as he has been doing since 2012.
This past weekend, he was in the Azurean region where he found his foothold in Saint-Laurent du Var at Joseph Ségura’s place, the city’s mayor who is the president of his local support committee.
A public meeting (with a few hundred people attending and few local dignitaries, all already pledged to other candidates) and other local contacts comprised the candidate’s schedule.
Like most of his opponents in the primary, he is slowly revealing his program, the main points of which he will unveil in the fall.
But, as a pure product of the Republic’s elite, he wants to be a reformer against the “caste”!
At every public meeting, he hammers home his creed: the necessity to “renew” the political class. “We must end the government of énarques!” exclaims the man who is an… énarque!
And he promises, amidst applause, to reduce the number of deputies to 400 (instead of the current 577) and to increase the number of senators to two per department (210 instead of 348), and to go even further in banning the accumulation of mandates, adding the cap of three consecutive terms.
To be more at ease, this well-educated technocrat from upscale neighborhoods (besides the ENA, he graduated from Normale Sup), who describes himself as having a “reserved temperament,” organizes his meetings in a question-and-answer format.
“Renewal, it’s Bruno”? Yes, why not. He who is not a newcomer to politics.
“One day, they say I’m too young, another that I’m an old hand…,” he says, somewhat philosophically.
Indeed, this ambitious man has already proven his capabilities by challenging Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency of his party, achieving an impressive score of nearly 30%.
And what if, in the end, he was the right one?
