Soon the Rugby World Cup. Wednesday, August 30, around Emmanuel Macron, there will therefore be fifteen: Elisabeth Borne, the presidents of the National Assembly, the Senate and the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Yaël Braun-Pivet, Gérard Larcher and Thierry Beaudet), and eleven party leaders: Jordan Bardella, François Bayrou, Manuel Bompard, Eric Ciotti, Olivier Faure, Laurent Hénart, Hervé Marseille, Edouard Philippe, Fabien Roussel, Stéphane Séjourné and Marine Tondelier (in alphabetical order). Will there be any last-minute injuries? Not everyone, like number 1 of LR or RN, answered yes, but no one said no. A letter has been sent to everyone, which specifies that those who would like not to come empty-handed and make contributions that they will be “welcome”. Who is silent consents ? Obviously, those who were not selected are not happy: LIOT is not a party but a group in the Assembly, it was not invited.
The Stade de France will not be far, less than three kilometers away. Because, as always with Emmanuel Macron, the place is meant to be symbolic: in Seine-Saint-Denis, which experienced its share of riots at the end of June, at the school of the Legion of Honor, a high place of meritocracy.
The meeting will take place behind closed doors: even the secretary general of the Elysée, the essential Alexis Kohler, will not be in the room. There will not be two halves, nor four thirds like with Pagnol, but three stages: the first will be devoted to the international situation: Ukraine, Niger and other geopolitical upheavals will then be invited into the discussion. The Elysée emphasizes that Europe is at the heart of current tensions and that it must therefore find its own means of responding to the current situation. The second phase will aim to seek solutions to “strengthen the effectiveness of public policies”, the third, at dinner time, on the path to take to “make a nation”.
“It all depends on the players”
The menu of the meal is not known, as well as the attitude of the participants: will they consider that they are presented with cream pies? Because the idea is to play collectively. But for that, everyone must agree to get out of their “postures”. The president’s advisers have identified the two pitfalls: some may decide to boycott the meeting and “sulk”, others may come only to unpack their agenda, from immigration to pensions.
However, in the spirit of Emmanuel Macron, it is not a question of redoing the presidential election, the campaign like the election, nor of putting oneself in the place of the government: “The idea is to extract oneself from the molasses of everyday life to go to new sites”, explains a relative. The president, if he wants to be the herald of “surpassing” from day one and believes, as always, in the “unprecedented” nature of his initiative, does not play the card of national unity at all, quite the contrary: he wants everyone to take responsibility. And if he has no intention, promised sworn, to monopolize the floor, he will come with ideas in mind. “We are not like the G7 with a press release written in advance, insists an adviser, everything will depend on the players.”
After the CNR, after the hundred days, here is the-great-political-initiative. Would this second five-year term be destined to be nothing more than a succession of “things”, as someone who also saw the Elysée from the inside said? Olivier Véran, the government spokesperson who is also Minister Delegate for Democratic Renewal, wanted to participate in the Lépine competition on Monday morning on BFMTV by putting the idea of a “preferendum” on the table. Kesako? It is the plural of referendum… Several questions on the same day, to avoid that we are more interested in the person who asks them than in the subjects mentioned. Referendum, it is true that Emmanuel Macron has only had this word in his mouth or almost since his re-election. But lexical innovations are easier to achieve than institutional innovations: the president has checked the possibility of taking action, and it turns out that it is almost impossible in France to ask more than two questions, mainly to ballot box issues.
“Les Rencontres de Saint-Denis”, since such will be their name, take place on Wednesday afternoon and evening. The main thing will be what will happen after: at the time of the digestive, when the time for the restitutions comes; and the day after, when it will be necessary to imagine the follow-up to be given. The proximity to the Saint-Denis basilica does not allow us to believe in the miracle of consensus. More than in the Bible, Emmanuel Macron seeks in Camus how to drag his rock, in this case his ball and chain that constitutes the absence of an absolute majority: “You have to imagine Sisyphus happy.”