Many European leaders made the trip. Emmanuel Macron paid tribute, on Friday January 5, during a national tribute to the memory of the former President of the European Commission Jacques Delors, who died on December 27 at the age of 98, who “truly reconciled France with Europe” and “Europe with its future”.
“Jacques Delors never tired of exploring to reconcile, scouting, finding alternatives, building bridges,” declared the Head of State in the Cour des Invalides, during a solemn ceremony.
“The face of today’s Europe, Jacques Delors helped to draw it, line by line,” added the French president in tribute to the father of the euro who, at the head of the Commission from 1985 to 1995, established the single market, initiated the signing of the Schengen agreements, launched the Erasmus program, reformed the common agricultural policy…
It brought to light “the possibility of an emancipatory social democracy”, welcomed the head of state. “The possibility of a united Europe, that of Schengen, Erasmus, Maastricht, united by common values, from Compostela to the Balkans, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea.”
His path “continues”
Emmanuel Macron, a few months before the European elections in June where the National Rally is the favorite in France, assured that his path “continues”. “A difficult path, a crest path, one which moves away from facilities and pretenses, always in imbalance, holds the Nation and Europe, economic strength and social justice, the real and the ideal”, he added.
The French president also paid tribute to the former Minister of the Economy under François Mitterrand (1981-1984), the ephemeral hope of the left in the 1995 presidential election, who “reconciled the government’s socialism with the market and the French with the economy. After the funeral eulogy of the Head of State, the bell tolls, the Marseillaise and the Ode to Joy, the European anthem, rang out in the courtyard of the Invalides.
Many European leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of the leaders of the nationalist camp in Europe, made the trip.
Also present, alongside the mayor of Lille Martine Aubry, daughter of Jacques Delors, the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the presidents of the Council and the Commission , the Parliament and the European Central Bank.