Macron picks farmer-friendly MEP Valérie Hayer to
lead uphill battle against far right in EU election
In choosing Hayer and Bernard Guetta as the first and
second candidates on Renaissance’s EU election list, the French president is
making clear that agriculture and the war in Ukraine are top priorities.
FEBRUARY
29, 2024 1:15 PM CET
BY VICTOR
GOURY-LAFFONT AND ELISA BERTHOLOMEY
French
President Emmanuel Macron picked Valérie Hayer to be his party’s lead candidate
in June’s European elections, party operatives told POLITICO, vying for a
candidate to help Renaissance connect with angry farmers who have been
protesting across France.
The
official announcement is expected on Thursday.
Hayer, 37,
is relatively unknown to the French public, but an aide to the president
emphasized that her policy expertise and personal background made her the right
person to lead the campaign.
“As the
daughter and granddaughter of farmers, Hayer has things to say on current
events,” the aide said, referring to the ongoing farmers’ protests.
Hayer was
elected the head of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament earlier
this year, replacing Stéphane Séjourné after his appointment as France’s
foreign minister. A lawyer by trade, she joined the European Parliament in 2019
after previously serving only in local politics.
Hayer’s
upcoming appointment, which has been reported in multiple media outlets over
the past week, is set to be confirmed by Renaissance’s executive committee.
Campaign posters ready for use and seen by POLITICO feature the lead
candidate’s image and bear the slogan Besoin d’Europe (A Need For Europe).
According
to two party operatives who spoke to POLITICO, outgoing European Parliament
member Bernard Guetta, a former journalist with a focus on foreign affairs,
could rank second on the pro-Macron camp’s EU election list this time around,
which was not expected.
“With two
wars on our borders and the United States taking a step back, the European
elections in June will, for the first time, focus on immediate issues of common
security,” Guetta wrote last month in a Libération opinion piece. Macron has
put the war in Ukraine back at the forefront of French politics with his
statements opening the door to sending Western troops. That strategy clearly
targets the National Rally and its ambiguous position on Russia and support for
Ukraine.
The list
will also include the party’s 2019 lead candidate, Nathalie Loiseau. Séjourné,
who had been expected to be picked as lead candidate prior to joining the
government, will also be included, but lower down the list.
In the
run-up to the EU election, Macron has increasingly shifted his policies to
appeal to right-wing voters. He has also backtracked on environmental targets
since the start of the farmers’ movement. This has led to uncertainty around
what role Pascal Canfin, who chairs the Committee on the Environment, Public
Health and Food Safety in the European Parliament, will play in the EU
campaign.
Canfin, the
former head of the French branch of the World Wildlife Fund, ran in second
position on the pro-Macron list in 2019 — but has since become one of the
farmers’ unions main target for his push to implement green policies.
Hayer faces
a challenging road ahead. In a poll released on Wednesday, her list is
projected to receive 18 percent of the vote, trailing the far-right National
Rally, led by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, by 12 percentage points.
During a TV
interview on Tuesday, National Rally Vice President Sébastien Chenu described
Hayer as a “candidate by default,” while Bardella, speaking at the Paris
International Agricultural Show, declared Macron as his “only adversary.”
Clea
Caulcutt and Sarah Paillou contributed to this report.
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