Emmanuel Macron has claimed that those who criticise French lockdown policy are not living in the ‘real world’, while praising one veil-wearing Muslim woman as a feminist.
Incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron has had a strange last 48 hours on the campaign trail, denouncing one voter as not living in the “real world” over her criticisms of the President’s lockdown policy, while praising another woman for being both a feminist who wears an Islamic veil, she said, voluntarily.
Having initially thought to have been a shoo-in for reelection, Macron has suddenly found himself in tight contention with right-populist rival Marine Le Pen, the traditionally Eurosceptic and anti-mass migration politician polling within a few percentage points of the La République En Marche leader.
According to a report by POLITICO, Macron ventured into enemy territory on Monday seemingly in the hopes of regaining lost ground, speaking face to face to voters in Denain, where Le Pen achieved 41 per cent of first preference votes.
However, while the former socialist candidate may have entered the region with the hopes of winning hearts and minds, it seems like the opposite has been the result, with the President even going so far as to say that one voter was not living in the “real world” when she challenged the president’s lockdown policy.
Emmanuel Macron: "emmerder" les non-vaccinés, "je l'ai dit de manière affectueuse" pic.twitter.com/uSbmqUwWRT
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) April 11, 2022
What’s more, Macron also publicly denied suggesting that unvaccinated French people were “under-citizens”, instead claiming that his comments regarding wanting to “piss off” the unvaccinated with harsh lockdown rules were said “in an affectionate way“.
This seemed to go down like a led balloon with voters, with the woman Macron described as not living in the real world appearing to be particularly amused by the French President’s accusations.
“I don’t live in the real world?” asked the woman, a dental assistant by profession. “…people will be laughing in front of their TV sets.”
Shock Poll Puts Marine Le Pen Ahead of Macron in French Presidential Second Roundhttps://t.co/ydmWYRwp3o
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 8, 2022
While President Emmanuel Macron’s venture into Denain did not go so well, he seemed to receive a slightly warmer welcome in Strasbourg, where he met and praised a veiled Muslim woman as being a feminist.
The comments came after the woman, who was wearing what appeared to be a black Islamic veil at the time, confronted Macron over his position on gender equality.
“Are you a feminist?” BFMTV reports the woman as asking Macron.
Responding in the affirmative, Macron then asked the woman if she was a Feminist, to which she replied “Yes I am a feminist, I am for gender equality.”
This seemed to please Macron, who used the opportunity to take aim at Le Pen, who has previously expressed the desire to ban the Muslim headscarf in public places.
“Having a young girl who wears the veil, in Strasbourg, who says ‘are you a feminist?’ is the best answer to all the nonsense I hear,” Macron told the woman. “Because on the other side there is Madame Le Pen who says ‘the veil will be prohibited in the public square with me’.”
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