Northern France takes center stage in politics ahead of the 2022 polls
Last month, Emmanuel Macron opened a new battery factory in a former coal mine in northern France. The only problem is that the local politician and presidential candidate Xavier Bertrand announced the news three days ago.
In his first re-election campaign speech, Macron later outlined the necessity of France’s “re-industrialization” and expressed his hope that Hauts-de-France’s battery project heralded “large-scale investment in the transformation of the automotive industry.”
“The important thing is not the speech. The real question is what is actually done,” commented Bertrand, the center-right former Minister of Health who has been chairman of the regional committee since 2015.