South west plan
Prime Minister Jean Castex is back in the south west on Monday, his home turf, and while there will be signing off the Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest – an investment plan for the south west – and visiting Montauban, near Toulouse, to present the details of a new hospital.
Manifesto launch
Valérie Pécresse of the centre-right Les Républicains party will officially unveil her manifesto on Monday, in an event in Paris. Her manifesto slogan has already been revealed – le courage de faire (the courage to do).
Petrol prices
Meanwhile Marine Le Pen is holding an event at her campaign HQ in which she reveals her own proposal to deal with spiralling petrol prices, it comes after Castex announced over the weekend a 15c per litre reduction in the price of petrol or diesel for consumers.
Egg-strike
Over the weekend Eric Zemmour became the first candidate in this election to be hit with an egg while campaigning. This type of incident is not uncommon – there’s even a word to describe getting covered in flour – and extreme right candidate Zemmour fell victim to this as he was getting out of his car on a visit to Moissac in south west France. He continued with his planned event.
Rien de mieux qu'un bon œuf le matin pic.twitter.com/TBBlHr5KEb
— Englishman In Marseille (@anglomarseille) March 12, 2022
Twitter telling-off
Emmanuel Macron has been reprimanded by France’s electoral commission for using his presidential Twitter account for campaign messages.
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Macron had recently changed his Twitter bio to the below image – that hieroglyphic is Mes chers compatriotes in the president’s distinctive blue scrawl from his letter to the French people announcing his candidacy. He also changed the profile pic to an unmasked photo, for the first time in almost two years.
Since the reprimand, he (or his team) has changed the image to one of the Elysée lit up with the EU flag, and directed users to the campaign account @avecvous for the latest from the campaign trail.
Candidates trips
Eight of the 12 candidates will take part in a special programme on TF1 at 8.20pm on the subject of the Ukraine war, they are Emmanuel Macron, Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Marine Le Pen, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Valérie Pécresse, Fabien Roussel and Eric Zemmour.