MACRON SPEECH. In an interview with readers of Le Parisien, Emmanuel Macron said: “The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off”. A sentence which aroused the ire of the opposition but which takes place in a particular context. Calculated or uncontrolled output?
“The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off.” The exit of Emmanuel Macron in a face-to-face with readers of the Parisian did not go unnoticed. Far from there. Published Tuesday, January 4, 2022, the interview with the President of the Republic captured the media and political attention. If the Head of State has spoken on many subjects, from the management of the health crisis to European construction, including nuclear power and his possible candidacy for the presidential election, it is his spike addressed by the chief of the State against the French who have not yet received any dose of Covid-19 vaccine which marked the most, arousing the unanimous anger of its opponents, despite the unwavering support of its majority.
Before the Senate, Prime Minister Jean Castex had defended the tenant of the Elysee: “What the President of the Republic said, I hear it everywhere. […] The words of the President of the Republic are fully consistent with what we are doing, ie pushing for vaccination. “When leaving the Council of Ministers, Gabriel Attal had also persisted and signed.” The question what you have to ask yourself is’ who fuck who? […] They are those who oppose vaccines “, he added, before adding:” The words of the President of the Republic are far below the anger of a very large majority of French. “However, a small majority of French people (between 53 and 60%) did not approve of Emmanuel Macron’s statements, according to polls carried out by Elabe (for BFM TV), CSA (for CNews) and Harris Interactive (for LCI).
Deliberate or impulsive?
If Emmanuel Macron’s sentence sparked an uproar, the interviewers for one day of the head of state were the first surprised by the scale that it has taken. Because this sentence was not pronounced sharply in direct response to a question, but came out of the mouth of the President of the Republic at the end of an argument. “He didn’t say ‘piss off’ because he wanted to piss them off, but to get them vaccinated,” he said. Parisian Isabelle Berrier, author of the initial remark on “these people who are not vaccinated are those who occupy 85% of resuscitations. And, on the other hand, there are people who have cancer whose operations are postponed, to whom we do not give access to care and who are vaccinated! “. “Piss off… It came out like that, it was natural. I did not find it calculating”, abounds Marie-Ève Lenegre, reader present, just like Hakim Bey: “This sentence does not come like that. was not a shocking statement, otherwise it would have cast a chill around us. Anyway, that’s not what I took away from the exchange. “
Emmanuel Macron let himself go? Coup de com ‘for some, forked language for others … The fact remains that the presidential palace has validated the remarks. “We sent the interview for a courtesy rereading, but no retouching. The Elysee did not object when it saw this sentence,” said Olivier Beaumont, senior reporter in the political service of the Parisian who coordinated the interview. And adds: “It comes in a long stream of 2 hours. When he comes to the end of his demonstration, the journalists, we twitched, we said to ourselves that it was going to make people react, but the panelists did not react anymore. than that. ”The tone was invigorating but not aggressive. […] It was a broken conversation but a very particular exercise, a simple and spontaneous exchange, and it comes at the end of a demonstration. He speaks like French “.
If the President of the Republic had perhaps not premeditated such an exit, the context making and his argument taking place in front of a panel made up among others of health professionals, his remarks of “speaking truth” were finally validated. “The President of the Republic can also say out loud what everyone is thinking quietly,” added Jean Castex.
A formula borrowed from Pompidou, really?
Jean Castex had also assured that “these terms that you do not want to pronounce had already been pronounced”. In his response to Bruno Retailleau at the Luxembourg Palace, the resident of Matignon began his remarks by implicitly evoking a historical fact, expressly named by Christophe Castaner on Franceinfo a little earlier in the day: “I do not consider that to name things, to paraphrase President Pompidou, is to attack those and those who today do not want to be vaccinated”. The reference of the Prime Minister and the president of the LREM deputies? A sentence pronounced by Georges Pompidou in 1966: “But stop pissing off the French!”.
But this injunction had been pronounced in a very different context. First, the future President of the Republic was then “only” Prime Minister, Charles de Gaulle being at the Elysee Palace. In addition, the context of the delivery differed from that of Emmanuel Macron. Indeed, the sentence of Georges Pompidou was an indiscretion reported at the end of a private address intended for Jacques Chirac, then in charge of mission. And it was above all a question of not “pissing off” the French. “But stop pissing off the French! There are too many laws, too many texts, too many regulations in this country! We are dying! Let them live a little and you will see that everything will be better! peace! We must liberate this country! “, had launched Pompidou. The loan made by Emmanuel Macron therefore does not appear appropriate. “It is precisely anti-Pompidou. Pompidou, it was ‘Stop pissing off the French’. There, it’s ‘I want to piss them off and I will continue to do it'”, had criticized Christian Jacob, boss of LR in the Assembly, on LCI.
He had promised, in mid-December on TF1, that he would no longer pronounce small sentences “which can hurt”. Obviously, Emmanuel Macron let himself go off track, either little mastered or very risky, in the interview he gave to readers of the Parisian Tuesday January 4. The head of state launched into a frank plea about the pressure that the government is currently putting on the unvaccinated. To a reader who pointed out to him that taking care of the unvaccinated in hospital, in intensive care units, prevents other patients, such as vaccines with cancer, from receiving their care, he replied: ” What you have just said is the best argument. In a democracy, the worst enemy is lies and stupidity. We put pressure on the unvaccinated by limiting for them, as much as possible, the access to social life activities. Moreover, almost all people, more than 90%, have joined “.
And Emmanuel Macron to continue in a very liberated tone: “It’s a very small minority that is resistant. That one, how do we reduce it? We reduce it, sorry to say it, like that, by pissing it off even more . Me, I’m not for pissing off the French. I plague the administration all day long when it blocks them. Well, there, the unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. continue to do so, until the end “. This sentence, by its offensive nature, caused an uproar in the political class, while parliamentarians are currently examining the draft law on the vaccine pass in a climate of tension.
Other remarks about the unvaccinated take on a more political dimension, arguing that their individual behavior causes deleterious effects for the whole of society. “That is the immense moral fault of the antivax: they come to undermine the solidity of a nation. When my freedom threatens that of others, I become irresponsible. An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen “.
Opponents of the head of state did not fail to react on Twitter to the president’s remarks. Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the first to be outraged on Twitter: “Does the president control what he says? The WHO says” convince rather than coerce “. And him?” Piss off more. “Appalling. […] It is clear, the vaccination pass is a collective punishment against individual freedom. “The candidate of the national rally for the presidential election of 2022, Marine Le Pen, added:” A president should not say that. The guarantor of the unity of the nation persists in dividing it and assumes that he wants to make the unvaccinated second-class citizens. Emmanuel Macron is unworthy of his position. “Yannick Jadot described his words as” unworthy. “” No health emergency justifies such words. Emmanuel Macron says he has learned to love the French, he especially likes to despise them. We can encourage vaccination without insulting anyone or pushing for radicalization “, reacted on Twitter, Senator LR Bruno Retailleau, Valérie Pécresse said” indignant “in an interview with CNews.
Among his majority, few manage to defend the tone used by the president. Edouard Philippe, questioned on the subject on France 2 this Wednesday replied: “He has an idea, there is a term. […] In familiar language we will say, eh … Sometimes the President of the Republic expresses himself in a sustained manner, sometimes in a familiar manner. What is clear is that we understood what he meant “.
The interview with Emmanuel Macron in Le Parisien generated a controversy which grew considerably very quickly. And the words of the Head of State had an immediate political impact: in the National Assembly, the examination of the text on the vaccination pass was interrupted, following the outcry generated in the hemicycle. The chairman of the session, the elected opposition member LR Marc Le Fur unilaterally considered that “the conditions for peaceful work” were “not met” and closed the debates.