With salty language, Macron berates France’s unvaccinated

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron burst into the presidential race with an explosive remark about the country’s minority of unvaccinated people — in an apparent effort to win support from mainstream voters but at the risk of widening divisions over the issue. Macron’s goal is “to draw all the attention” and “make his contenders disappear, on the Trump model,” political communications expert Philippe Moreau Chevrolet tweeted. Journalist Frédéric Says, a close observer of French politics, said on France Culture radio that it seems likely that Macron wants to “capitalize” on the exasperation expressed by many French voters. Macron’s supporters suggested the president simply expressed out loud what some vaccinated people already think about the unvaccinated, in a country with bitter divisions over the issue. Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who opposed the vaccine pass proposal, said the president wants “to wage war against a portion of the French.” Another far-right candidate, Eric Zemmour, accused Macron of “cruelty.” On the far left, presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon asked: “Is the president in control of what he says?” France reported a record-smashing 332,252 daily virus cases Tuesday as omicron infections race across the country, burdening hospital staff and threatening to disrupt transportation, schools and other services.