POLITICO: Macron seeks support across Europe for election campaign

07 March 2019

Emmanuel Macron's party launched a campaign to win support across the Continent ahead of May's European Parliament election — even though it's only running in France.

The initiative builds on Macron's call for a new "European Renaissance" published in newspapers around Europe this week. It invites people to back Macron's vision of Europe by signing a petition on bespoke websites for each of the bloc's 28 member states.

"The goal of the European campaign is to create this electric arc of support for Emmanuel Macron's project," Stéphane Séjourné, campaign manager for the president's La République En Marche (LREM) party, told French radio.

The campaign underscores Macron's ambition to build a political movement across Europe, bypassing existing parties in other countries and upending the traditional group structure in the European Parliament. Macron triggered a similar upheaval in France, founding his own centrist movement and confounding traditional parties to win the presidency in May 2017.

The campaign also offers Macron a chance to move beyond the Yellow Jackets anti-government protests, which rocked his presidency over the winter but has dwindled after he offered concessions and launched a series of debates around the country. [...]

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