Education, immigration, end of life, separatism: Macron, his plan for the five-year term

Emmanuel Macron has won his bet: to be re-elected. The practical work phase now begins: what will he implement in the first 100 days? What are its priorities? How do they relate to the policy implemented since 2017? What are the questions that remain on the substance and on the method implemented? L’Express took over the candidate’s program, his statements and the explanations of those around him. Without omitting any questions and remaining gray areas. Here, the main societal measures that Emmanuel Macron and his future government intend to implement in the next five years.

• Education: more autonomy and better paid teachers

Exit the formula “read, write, count, respect others”, repeated like a mantra for the past five years by the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer. During the presentation of his program to the press on March 17, the candidate Macron certainly recalled the importance of emphasizing fundamental learning such as French or mathematics, which should find a greater place in the common core in high school. The central question of orientation was also raised. But the school project, presented as one of the most important of this five-year period – a budget of 12 billion euros has been promised for education and youth – will be accompanied above all by a “change of method “.

The central idea? Give teachers new assignments and pay them accordingly. The application of “work more to earn more” to the world of teachers aims to encourage support for the pupils most in difficulty, to strengthen relations with the parents of pupils, to encourage teachers to follow more training or encouraging them to get involved in extracurricular activities. The adoption or strengthening of these missions will be done on a voluntary basis, initially, for staff already in exercise.

Another important part of the new method advocated by Emmanuel Macron: the results of the evaluations, carried out within each school, college and high school, will now be made public in order to better identify “good teaching practices” and to better draw inspiration from them. . Finally, emphasis will be placed on greater autonomy for institutions. On the model of the experiment currently being carried out in Marseille, the directors and heads of establishments will be able to issue an opinion on the recruitment of teachers, or even reject certain profiles if they do not seem to be in line with the project they wish to carry out. .

What accentuate a little more the ire of a part of the profession already very rebound against certain previous reforms, such as that of the baccalaureate and the high school. The vision of Emmanuel Macron, who assumes this liberal turn, is not new and had already been outlined by his entourage during the 2017 campaign. But the rapid advance of several structural measures, to which had come added to the storm of the health crisis, had postponed these inclinations to later. Aware of their explosive nature, the president announced the prior launch of a vast consultation bringing together educational teams, parents, elected officials, associations and students. The unions are already sharpening their weapons.

• End of life: move forward without jostling

Is it because he claims to embody the “new world”? In the eyes of his supporters, Emmanuel Macron can only be progressive in the societal field. However, it is not certain that he will go down in history for his progress in this area. Certainly, since 2017, he has opened the PMA to female couples and singles. Admittedly, he has made violence against women a “great national cause” and had several legislative measures adopted. But its ambitions for the next five years seem extremely modest. Still in the field of violence against women, he plans to triple the fines for sexist insults and the “creation of a file of perpetrators of domestic violence”. Similarly, he wants “to allow all couples living together to reduce their taxes as if they were married or in a civil partnership”. On the other hand, he totally rejected the idea of ​​recognizing surrogacy.

The only subject on which he does not rule out making progress by 2027: the end of life. But Emmanuel Macron remained very cautious by simply announcing the launch of a “citizen convention” around a modification of the Claeys-Léonetti law of 2016, which prohibits euthanasia and assisted suicide. He would then submit the conclusions to Parliament or to the citizens by referendum. If the Head of State wants to proceed in this way, it is because he knows the sensitive subject, especially within his majority. During the previous five-year term, some deputies had wanted to defend a bill aimed at legalizing active medical assistance in dying, it had slowed them down. This time, the choice of a citizens’ debate casts doubt on the real will of the Head of State to succeed, the precedent on the climate not having been very convincing, since he had retained only a few ideas after promising to take them “unfiltered”.

• Turn of the screw on immigration and the fight against discrimination

In 2017, immigration was one of the salient points for candidate Macron – and a very clear point of distinction with his opponent, Marine Le Pen. At the height of the Syrian migration crisis, when he was still François Hollande’s minister, he was one of the few to salute Angela Merkel’s attitude in these terms: “It’s first of all our dignity but it is also an economic opportunity, because these are the men and women who have remarkable qualifications.” During the 2017 campaign, he defended the idea of ​​essential immigration for the French economy… while reaffirming the need to better monitor the external borders of the European Union.

Five years later, Emmanuel Macron’s rhetoric has become particularly hardened with regard to illegal immigration. However, on the merits, his thinking has not changed, but he has learned to give pledges to public opinion. Admittedly, he still judges that France is not overwhelmed and that “zero immigration” is “neither desirable nor achievable”, as he recalled in various press interviews. He also believes that the solution to better control of migratory flows can only be European. In particular, he defends a reform of the Schengen area and of the European coastguard agency, Frontex.

But in the perspective of the quinquennium which opens, he does not hesitate to display a new turn of the screw, after the near failure of the Collomb law, promulgated in 2018, which aimed to reduce the time limits for examining applications for asylum and facilitate returns to countries of origin. Thus, the refusal of an asylum application would tomorrow automatically be worth an obligation to leave French territory. Emmanuel Macron also wants to continue the policy initiated in recent months with regard to the Maghreb countries by limiting the granting of visas when they do not cooperate in a return policy. He wants to suspend the renewal of visas for third-country nationals who “disturb public order” and expel them, a policy already initiated by Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, for several months. Finally, the granting of long-stay permits (more than four years) will be conditional on passing a French exam and on a real process of professional integration. In return for this hardening, Emmanuel Macron gives pledges and promises to fight against discrimination by using “systematic testing” in companies. Not sure that the left-wing voters who voted on his name in the second round will find their account there.

• Separatism: fight the radicals but reach out

Fight against separatism, and after? Between 2017 and 2022, Emmanuel Macron carried out a form of Copernican revolution on sovereign issues, brilliantly recounted in Night falls twice (Fayard), the recent work of Corinne Lhaïk and Eric Mandonnet, political editor at L’Express. After asserting that France had “a share of responsibility” in the “terrain” of jihadism, in 2015, the President of the Republic gradually changed his vision, until denouncing, at the beginning of October 2020 and even more after the assassination. of Samuel Paty, the rise of “Islamist separatism”. In its sights, this communitarianism which, without expressly freeing it from the laws, has developed a disdain for this “everyday will” which is supposed to be belonging to the French nation, according to the words of Ernest Renan, quoted in May 2021 by Emmanuel Macron.

In his second term program, the Head of State promised the “continuation of the closure of radical associations and mosques, of clandestine schools, the expulsion of radicalized preachers, the control of foreign funding”. To this end, he intends to rely on the so-called separatism law, promulgated in August 2021, and on the “Al Capone method”, which consists of carrying out frequent and thorough administrative checks within organizations which apparently respect the rules but whose the intelligence services reported that they had radical acquaintances.

In a typically Macronian “at the same time”, the re-elected president also plans to reach out to these French people who are falling back on their communities of origin, for lack of adherence to the republican narrative. To restore the passion for France to the younger generations, the president wants to rely on the universal national service (SNU), experienced during the previous five-year term. This SNU is destined to become partly compulsory for young people aged 15 to 17, which will require the passing of a law. It could be twelve so-called “cohesion” days in boarding school, in a department other than that in which the teenager resides. The cohorts would discover the armies, would be trained in the knowledge of our history and our institutions. Emmanuel Macron also wants to encourage these new “conscripts” to then commit to a longer period, between three months and a year, within the defense or in a civic service mission. An activity which, he promises in his program, will give right to the financing of the “driver’s license” by the State.