Emmanuel Macron has been accused of “requisitioning” D-Day with wall-to-wall media appearances in a bid to save his party from humiliation in the European elections, reports The Telegraph.
Likening the French president to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, Olivier Faure, the head of the Socialist Party, criticised Mr Macron’s plan to deliver three speeches on consecutive days.
“So on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, it will be ‘Fidel Macron’ on all the channels to commemorate and express himself without a contradiction at 8pm – in short, to campaign at a time when no one will be able to respond to him,” he said.
On Thursday, with just three days to go before the ballot for the European Parliament, Mr Macron will issue a prime-time televised address evening to mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings and the push to liberate France from Nazi occupation. He is due to mention the situation in Europe, as well as Gaza and Ukraine.
Then, on Friday, he will make a speech in Bayeux in which, as France Inter radio put it, he will seek to depict himself as the “true heir to Charles de Gaulle” on the eve of a media blackout at the end of official campaigning before the elections.
He will then receive Joe Biden for the US president’s first state visit to France, with the aim of further bolstering his credentials as an international statesman.