From one crisis to another. Barely returned from his tour in Oceania, to put an end to the French controversies and try to draw a line under a particularly trying political year, Emmanuel Macron had to chair a defense council devoted to Niger, following the recent coup military state. But the dimension of France abroad is not the only concern of the Head of State. He is preparing hard for the return to French politics, and also plans to associate the opposition parties with a brand new project, which he describes as a “major political initiative”, reveals he in an interview with Figaro Magazine, published this Wednesday, August 2.
While the National Council for Refoundation is generally considered a missed opportunity, Emmanuel Macron intends this time to unite at the end of August around his project of “making a nation”. His goal ? “Trying to bring together around a clear and simple project all those who want to find their way, without asking them to join everything”, he confides to Figaro Magazine. This applies, in particular, to the image of France internationally, with in particular the Rugby World Cup in September and the Olympic Games in a few months.
“I will do everything I can do until May 2027. And I will do a lot, believe me,” continues the head of state in these statements made during his trip to Oceania last week. “That’s how you stop the extremes,” he adds, calling for “a new time that must open up in the life of the country.”
“I was elected on a promise of emancipation, of modernizing France, of breaking certain taboos. What we have done with results, especially on the economic and social side. Now, we can clearly see that something is at stake, which is not about “living together” – I don’t like this term -, but about “being a nation”, “he adds, a month after violent riots throughout the territory.
About this period, “I took care not to react hotly”, “on purpose”, claims the head of state, otherwise “we always talk nonsense”. He claims to refuse to “choose sides”, that is to say to decide between two orientations: to help families to educate children or to punish them. “We must support these families – give many more resources, better prepare them – and at the same time make them responsible”, pleads the President of the Republic, in particular with “sanction policies” when parents “are really in trouble. irresponsibility”, but without “removing family allowances”, a proposal which “ideologizes the debate” and would risk “aggravating the problem”, he believes.
But the two big political deadlines for the fall, on which bringing together the opposition will not be an easy task, are undoubtedly the vote on the 2024 budget and the immigration bill. In the latter case, the Head of State does not rule out using the much-maligned article 49.3… “I don’t want to be jostled by fortune majorities or blockages […]. I will use what the Constitution allows me to do,” he said, calling himself “more Gaullist than the Gaullists” in reference to the Republicans. On July 24, Emmanuel Macron had however said he had “good hope” that “the republican oppositions would help to build a text” on immigration.
