After the agricultural crisis, a close friend of the president noted: “When the French look at him, they say to themselves ‘Still, Macron, he’s bad luck’.” The person concerned does not hear it that way, he who loves nothing more than crises, sure that they infuse the Head of State and the country with the gravity that befits them. “President of crises”, even theorized an Elysee strategist. No question of hiding. On the contrary, Emmanuel Macron insists: “For 7 years, we have experienced many crises, we have gone through them. And the situation we are experiencing for our country is one of them.” This is the advantage of not feeling accountable, or very little. To renew yourself after seven years, and without having prepared anything, is to condemn yourself to repeating.
Dissolution, “refoundation”. All while weakening the now powerful National Rally and the noisy and furious rebellious France. Childish. A press conference to outline a course, “building a federation of projects to govern, to act in the service of the French and for the Republic”. It is enough to “agree on a vision” with those who, within the defined and moving framework of the Republican arc as the president understands it – moving since those he excludes today were invited yesterday to take a seat around the table in Saint-Denis, but let’s move on -, wish to participate in the announced refoundation.
This gives four symbolic and ethereal axes, stated and dissected, this Wednesday, June 12 at the Pavillon Cambon, by a president clearly irritated by the incomprehension of his action. Here it details: “First element: the protection of our republican values and the protection of our compatriots”. Second axis: ecology. Third axis: progress. Finally, the fourth: “living better every day”, giving the French purchasing power back, in particular.
“The Berezina should look a little like that…”
Key words, “universalism”, “secularism”, “republican integration”, used to appease “anger”, the word is that of the president, of those who on Sunday June 9 voted for the National Rally. Promises, chanted with this very Macronian stubbornness: “We will be able to act to reindustrialize the country, move towards full employment, guarantee the unity of the country, reject the brutalization of public debate, help Ukraine, build Europe.” And at the end, two impressions. First, that the uncomfortable situation in which he is located prevents him from doing so. Refraining from anticipating the July results, and therefore not knowing with whom he could govern tomorrow, Emmanuel Macron finds himself forced not to propose anything specific. Axes but no measures, except a few consensual “objects”, as they say at the Elysée – the ban on “the use of telephones before the age of eleven”, pensions indexed to inflation… Diagnoses – often correct -, wishes, desires for debate (on secularism, for example) but no more.
Saying while always thinking that it is doing. The “Copernican revolution of action”? Seven years to accomplish it, this is the second feeling we experience after this speech from the Head of State. Elected since 2017, Emmanuel Macron seems born yesterday. “Why didn’t he do everything he said?” those who listen to him ask. “It takes time […] the magic recipe is not six months,” he retorts. Impossible situation.
Bitterness of a president who is confronted with a crisis from which, for once, the exit will be through the ballot box. What’s worse than uncertainty… “I believe in democracy and a return to the people”, reassures the person concerned. But “political life is not made of gratitude”. As proof, a former friend of the president observed at the end of the press conference: “It should look a little like that in Berezina. Heavy, cold, twilight.” Looking forward to tomorrow.