Emmanuel Macron has formally launched his campaign for re-election as French president with a promise of further tax cuts and more investment in new industries, as Europe confronts the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“For the past five years, we have faced a number of trials: terrorism, pandemic, the return of violence, war in Europe,” he wrote in a letter to the French people published in regional newspapers ahead of the Friday evening deadline. “Rarely has France been confronted with such an accumulation of crises.”
Macron, who is ahead in the opinion polls and is currently predicted to beat his main rivals in the two-round election in April, made a deliberately low-key campaign launch.