The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, is blunt: he does not want to give the keys to the Elysee Palace to the extreme right, and that is why he has extended his hand to the rest: “I am convinced that the social democrats, the radicals, the greens, the Christian democrats; the Gaullists that are not recognized in the extremist fever, can build a new project“.

These are statements made this Wednesday, in an appearance held after criticizing the pacts at his left and to his right, which he has described as “against nature.” But the one he has charged most harshly with has been the Republicans. “Who is in charge of the Republican right? has just made an alliance with the extreme right for the first time. He has turned his back on the legacy of General de Gaulle, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy“the president recalled.

Because, in France, isolating the extreme right has been almost a tradition for the last 40 years. “Never deal with extremism. It is poison. Divide, survive and destroy” Jacques Chirac warned in 2007. Not only did they close the door to pacts. Sarkozy announced in 2015 that “there will be no ministers from the National Front”.

Chirac went further and even refused to debate with them announcing in 2022 that they were not going to debate with the representative of the National Front: “I cannot accept the trivialization of tolerance and hatred.” The French system of double turn, in which you have to choose between two, has favored this cordon sanitaire. Left-wing voters voted for Chirac himself to avoid the presidency of Jean Marie Le Pen.