“To know where we are going, we have to know where we come from”, we are accustomed to decree, especially in this universe full of aphorisms that is the political world. This Tuesday evening, in the party room of the Élysée, Emmanuel Macron did not say anything else. Not so bluntly, let’s admit. Allergic to immobility – or, at least, to the idea that he could be put on trial for it – it is the loud and conquering verb, the clenched fists, the convincing tone, that the Head of State declined, during his press conference, the orientations of act 2 of his second five-year term.
A new chapter after the pension reform and the immigration law, symbolized by the appointment of a new Prime Minister, during which the “audacity, efficiency and action” of the government will have to respond to the challenges of this “moment decisive” in the history of our nation. It was well worth a big meeting with the French. But, obviously, not a revolution.
He draws from his 2017 program book
Speaking of “Revolution”, wouldn’t Emmanuel Macron have drawn his new recipes from his program book of the same name, published during the 2017 campaign? By reaffirming his desire to “get out of codes and boxes”, “liberate energies”, fight against “social and family determinisms” and house arrest, the Head of State seems to have undergone a semantic makeover.
Of course, he himself poaches new water for his mill: he cites by name Rachida Dati, his Minister of Culture from the Republicans – the only one to have been entitled to this treatment -, and justifies his appointment by the fact that his face alone illustrates the Republican social rise and the presidential desire to “put an end to this France of ‘It’s not made for me‘.” Some ingredients change, but the base sauce remains more or less the same. Is this the influence of the return to the Château of the ex-plum Jonathan Guémas, who became a communications advisor and attached to the original macronism as well as to the apple of his eye? Is it the desire to mark continuity while pretending to “reinvent himself”, as he wanted after the Covid crisis?
Dynamism or even transgression, therefore, on the one hand; “common sense” and “efficiency” on the other. How many times did Emmanuel Macron say these words during this press conference, whether in his opening remarks or in his responses to questions from the journalists sitting in front of him? France itself, in his words, must “remain this nation of common sense”. Here again, back in 2017: faced with ideologies, sclerosis, rents, pragmatism would be a cardinal value to follow like the shepherd’s star. A hygiene thanks to which it would be impossible to go astray.
We can easily imagine the aim: to address the French, in particular the middle classes, who are demanding more simplifications and fewer standards of all kinds. But, six and a half years later, it is worth wondering if it is good news for Macronism to still be here today. Emmanuel Macron loves history, Emmanuel Macron loves ideas, Emmanuel Macron loves the history of ideas: can “common sense”, in 2024, remain the central axis of a doctrine? Of a corpus? In this case, courage to those in his camp who intend to succeed the president: it takes a lot of talent to navigate with such a difficult concept.
2022 updates
This great return to the sources with the air of new momentum is still intended to be mixed with the updates of 2022. In line with his second campaign, Emmanuel Macron is pursuing the objective of a “rearmament” of the nation, of its codes , her values ; of a solidification of French collective identity. To the individual emancipation of the beginnings is added this project around the Republic, authority and accountability. One for all! All for one. This includes the unique outfit, soon to be tested in around a hundred schools, as well as the generalization of the Universal National Service, including the overhaul of civic education, and even the revival of the birth rate.
The head of state would flatter even beyond his electorate: “So that France remains France”, he launched, thus taking up a slogan of the LR, which has since been caught up, during the last presidential campaign , by Éric Zemmour. While returning to his classics, Emmanuel Macron assumes what his last government team foreshadowed: an assumed shift to the right, in the imagination as in the measures announced: the establishment of the criterion of “merit” in addition to seniority in the advancement of civil servants and his multiple references to the order bear witness to this.
For the rest, no “big bang”. No real new trial balloons sent by this president of the last quarter of an hour who, sometimes, knows how to astonish his people with an idea out of the hat. Most of the announcements made by the head of state were in the pipeline, if not in progress. The introduction of a new “birth leave” for fathers and mothers was revealed in the columns of L’Express by the former Minister of Solidarity and Families Aurore Bergé.
The introduction of theater as a “necessary passage” in middle school had been explored by Gabriel Attal when he was at Education. And the reflection concerning “the good use of screens for our children” is still in its infancy, the file having been entrusted to a group of experts last week. Emmanuel Macron met with the French this Tuesday, not to set a new course, but to reaffirm what already exists. With talent, pugnacity, but also with nostalgia. To know where we are going, we must know where we come from. And maybe even go back, casually.
.