In the comic series Tintin, only two features allow you to tell the difference between the characters Dupont and Dupond; the last letter of their name and the shape of their moustaches. There are a few more differences between the manifestos of President Emmanuel Macron and the mainstream Right’s presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse, but they still give the impression that they are more or less identical. After five years in office in which he has adopted the language and posture of the Right, Emmanuel Macron marked a new stage in his relentless drift rightwards when he recently revealed his manifesto for next month’s presidential election.

In his bid to win another term, on March 17^th Macron unveiled a series of policies that are broadly the same, both in spirit and in method, as those proposed by Les Républicains (LR) party candidate Pécresse. Indeed, after Macron’s lengthy discourse a spokesperson for Valérie Pécresse felt obliged to refer to the president’s “plagiarism” and “counterfeiting” . In response Emmanuel Macron, who is candidate for his party La République en Marche (LREM), declared that he “royally, totally and presidentially” could not care less about comments over his political positioning.

An example of the similarities between the two manifestos came when he set out the thinking that would underpin a second term. The current head of state promised to “strengthen growth” by “investing in capital” and by increasing the amount of time spent working in the country. This vision chimes in every respect with that of Pécresse, who is president of the Paris region. Indeed, the president put forward many of the measures that she had herself outlined in full just three days earlier.

The following list of these common measures – which is by no means exhaustive – makes for striking reading.

Moving the legal retirement age back to 65. “To preserve pensioners’ living standards, the issue of retirement has to be reformed.” This is something Valérie Pécresse has been saying since January this year. She has earmarked 2030 for when this new age threshold will come into force. Macron has long been against this measure, but he now uses similar language, taking the view that it would enable him to “finance the model” that he favours.

Making the RSA state benefit conditional on work or training. It was one of the major announcements made by Valérie Peresse at a political rally in Paris in mid-February: the social benefit payment known as the revenu de solidarité active (RSA) would, under her plan, only be paid to those who carried out 15 hours of work, training or community work each week. This proposal was attacked by various associations in France. But this did not deter Emmanuel Macron who said those on RSA should have to carry out “15 to 20 hours of activity”. The sitting president was quick to try to differentiate between his policy and that of his LR rival Valérie Pécresse, stating: “I don’t considerer those on the RSA benefit to be prisoners.” This was a reference to her idea of community work as one of the options to quality for the benefit. But the logic and approach of the two policies are the same.

Allow workers to swap days owed for money. Emmanuel Macron stated in the launch of his manifesto that he wants workers be able to convert days off that they are owed – which accrue from France’s reduced working hours or réduction du temps de travail (RTT), with some employees having a large backlog of days owed - into “hard cash”. Back in February Valérie Pécresse had proposed a similar measure when speaking on the 24-hour news channel BFMTV. “I want workers to be able to convert their days owed into salary, with no upper limit,” she said.

A rise in the minimum state pension. Both candidates say the full minimum state pension should be increased. The sums are slightly different: Macron talks of a minimum of 1,100 euros a month, while Pécresse wants to peg it to the net minimum wage. She says that at today’s rates this works out to 1,230 euros a month.

Automatic expulsion of failed asylum seekers. Currently, a person who is refused asylum in France can appeal against that decision. Emmanuel Macron, following on from Valerie Pécresse before him, has said he is now determined to change this rule. “Refusal should mean an obligation to leave the country,” said the head of state. “An increase in the number of procedures and appeals is today creating inefficiency in our system.”

Banning visas for countries that do not cooperate over expulsions. Macron has already begun this approach for countries in North Africa, and this policy will be broadened if either of the two right-wing candidates win the election in April. Pécresse had already promised to “suspend visas” for countries who refuse to deliver the consular passes that are required for expulsions to take place.

Broaden the right to work after retirement age. Both the LREM candidate and the LR candidate want to allow older people to continue to work after they get to retirement age. Valérie Pécresse intends to “completely liberalise” the practice of working after reaching the official retirement age. The current head of state, meanwhile, speaks about allowing a “simpler and more beneficial” way of combining employment with retirement.

Strengthening the teaching of the ’basics’ at primary school. This is something common to both manifestos: a desire to boost the number of hours devoted to teaching French and maths at primary school. However, Valérie Pécresse is the only one to have put actual numbers on this; she wants to see two more hours of French teaching a week and one more hour of maths. The two candidates also agree on a plan to reintroduce maths in the core curriculum at secondary school, after it was dropped during the presidency of … Emmanuel Macron.

Strengthen the presence of businesses in school life. On this issue Valérie Pécresse goes further than her rival by wanting apprenticeships to be able to start from the age of 14. Emmanuel Macron has not adopted that idea but has come up with another: allowing pupils at middle schools to explore “several trades” in order to help them decide on a career.

Increase the length of medical studies to help tackle the shortage of doctors in rural areas. This was an idea proposed by one of Pécresse’s rivals for the LR candidacy, Philippe Juvin, which she then adopted herself. It also now features in the plans of Emmanuel Macron who wants future general practitioners to do a fourth year of internship in rural areas to deal with the shortage of doctors there.

Reviewing European aims in agriculture. Like the candidate for the far-right Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen, Valérie Pécresse has for several weeks been attacking the European agricultural road map known as ’Farm to Fork’, which aims to row back on agricultural productivity in order to benefit the environment. While the LR candidate has promised to “revisit” this plan, Emmanuel Macron has euphemistically spoken of the need for “adaptation” because “no way can Europe produce less”.

On top of this list of common policies one could also add the political rhetoric of “rights and responsibilities”, a notion that both candidates freely employ. There are also more precise measures in common such as the construction of six new nuclear reactors, making the granting of residency visas dependent on a French language test and a major simplification of public administrative procedures.

There is nothing surprising about these similarities: for years Emmanuel Macron and Valérie Pécresse have shared the same liberal, pro-business and pro-European convictions. The current president’s tougher stance on the issues of law and order and national identity has only increased the convergence of their positions. “Emmanuel Macron is no more of the Left that I am,” Éric Woerth, who was a minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy, stated as he joined the camp of the outgoing president. It is also a point made by a number of LR politicians.

Emmanuel Macron is taking a strategic and electoral gamble in being so clearly inspired by the LR’s policy programme. For him it is about completing the job of siphoning up the voters on the traditional Right, which has become his political centre of gravity. When questioned about the criticism from LR politicians over this approach, the president appeared to question the merits of Valérie Pécresse’s candidacy. Paraphrasing the French playwright Moliére, Macron wondered: “If by now they don’t know how to differentiate themselves from my programme, then what have they been doing in this business?”

During the same press conference on March 17^th Macron also opened the door to the idea of appointing Valérie Pécresse in his team if he were re-elected. “I’m not ruling anything out,” he said. “I think we should try to bring together more broadly all the genuine political leaders who share my programme, whether they come from Right or Left … I’ll continue to expand this.” This kiss of death was aimed at convincing LR sympathisers that he represents the most effective vote when it comes to enacting their ideas.

Pécresse seeks to portray herself as the original representative of the Right – not a ’pale imitation’

The Pécresse campaign is acutely aware that its position has been damaged by this political onslaught. The mainstream Right’s political terrain has been squeezed to oblivion, crushed by Emmanuel Macron from one side and by far-right candidates Éric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen on the other. Valérie Pécresse’s campaign strategists have thus begun a counter-narrative based on three key points. These are to focus on the current president’s own record in office; attack his style of government and U-turns, and highlight issues relating to leadership and authority, while giving less attention to economic issues.

At a meeting a week ago at Nîmes in the south of France, the candidate herself tried out this new approach and adopted the slogan “the courage to do” to highlight her credibility in a number of key areas. “Who had the courage to say that the issue of retirement needed to be reformed? That was us. Who brought up the issue of nuclear energy again? That was us. Who said that there needed to be a quid pro quo for receiving the RSA benefit? That was us,” she told a political rally. She also told her audience that Emmanuel Macron had “not gone far enough” in showing leadership, on issues such as secularism and reducing public spending, and staked her claim to be the original and authentic voice of the Right in France. “You should always prefer the original to some pale imitation!” Pécresse declared.

This rhetoric is inspired by that of Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen who as head of the far-right National Front – as the party was then called – in the early 1990s accused the centre-right opposition figure Jacques Chirac of stealing far-right rhetoric. As an avowed supporter of Chirac, Valérie Pécresse knows how this panned out for him; the then mayor of Paris led the Right to victory in the Parliamentary elections of 1993 and he himself was elected president for the first time in 1995.

Ilyes Ramdani