Politics

Macron announces re-election bid

Paris, Mar 3 (EFE).- French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday officially announced his candidacy for re-election in a letter to the public in which he emphasized his intention to continue “preparing the future” and providing a “French and European response” to current challenges.

“I’m a candidate to allow us, both today and tomorrow, to decide for ourselves,” he said in his message made public on the local media outlets.

The official period in which candidates may declare themselves ends on Friday, and thus Macron has taken the maximum available time to declare and has received criticism for that from the opposition, which has accused him of, up to now, waging a hidden campaign taking advantage of the visibility provided to him by virtue of his position as president.

Macron’s letter, which began with the salutation “Dear compatriots,” notes that although the reforms undertaken during his term so far have allowed the creation of jobs in industry and that unemployment is at its “lowest level in 15 years,” at 7.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, “not everything has been accomplished.”

“There are things that, with the experience acquired, without doubt I would have done differently, but the transformations undertaken during this mandate have permitted many of our countrymen to live better and for France to gain independence. The crises we’ve been going through for the past two years show that this is the road that must be followed,” the liberal Macron said.

So, he added, he is asking for the trust of all French people to serve a second term as president.

“There is no independence without economic strength. We will have to work more and continue with reducing the taxes that weigh on labor and production … We will fight against the inequalities, seeking not only to correct them as quickly as possible but also going to the root” of the problems, he said.

In the roadmap he put forward in the letter, the president expressed his willingness to invest more in innovation and give priority to education, by – among other things – providing teachers with better pay.

Macron said that the country has learned to face “with dignity and brotherhood” the challenges that have presented themselves since 2015, including “terrorism, pandemic, a return of violence, war in Europe. Rarely has France confronted such an accumulation of crises.”

The presidential elections in France in April, with the first round being held on the 10th and the runoff on the 24th, “will determine the directions that the country takes … over the next five years and beyond.”

Macron said that “it is clear that I will not be able to campaign as I would have wanted given the context, but I will explain our plan with clarity and commitment.”

EFE mgr/rcf/psh/bp

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