More than twelve hours of discussions in total. The summit between Emmanuel Macron and the party leaders ended late in the night from Wednesday August 30 to Thursday August 31, a sign that the opponents, who came “without illusions”, played the game of this unprecedented debate. After midnight, the Head of State and the eleven party leaders who had been meeting for 3 p.m. behind closed doors in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, ended the second session, devoted to institutions, and began the last around the ” cohesion of the Nation” and the questions posed by the recent riots (school, authority, integration, immigration, inequalities…).
The first round of discussions, on the international situation, had already lasted four hours, double the time initially allocated. Nothing filtered through on the content of the exchanges, and the vagueness persists on their possible outcome: the press was kept away and the participants had to part with their phones, which they recovered only briefly during short breaks between sessions.
Just one participant congratulated his entourage on a “rather peaceful and constructive” state of mind during the first hours of the debates, which therefore played extra time until late at night. When they arrived at these “Rencontres de Saint-Denis”, the opponents had expressed their skepticism. “The small combinations or the com plans would not be up to the situation,” warned Les Républicains party boss Eric Ciotti in his opening remarks, which Agence France Presse received a copy of. “The French want more security, less taxes and less immigration,” he added.
Emmanuel Macron wants to bring together the party leaders again in “an identical format” to the meeting held in Saint-Denis, Agence France Presse learned from a source close to a participant in this summit. The head of state told the party leaders that he intended to “quickly” offer them a “method” of work with “a more precise agenda”.
Emmanuel Macron “validated” during his meeting with party leaders the principle of organizing a “social conference” on “careers and branches below the minimum wage”, said Thursday the entourage of the head of state. An adviser explained that this conference had been requested during the closed-door summit by some participants, and that the president had made a “commitment” to it. The boss of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure had previously considered that this commitment was the only positive point of these twelve hours of political discussions.
The leaders of Nupes said they were “disappointed” at the end of the exchanges, on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, citing only one positive point on the holding of a salary conference. “We came, we saw and we were disappointed,” said environmentalist leader Marie Tondelier, while Manuel Bompard, coordinator of La France Insoumise, said he feared “that the French will come out very disappointed with this meeting. “. “We are far from the big night”, but for the boss of the PS, Olivier Faure, the only positive point was a presidential commitment on a “salary conference”, which Nupes demanded.
This initiative aims to build legislative texts “together” and pave the way, “if necessary”, for referendums, according to the presidential invitation letter. All the leaders of the parties represented in Parliament accepted the invitation, but with suspicion on the side of the opposition, which suspects Emmanuel Macron of above all seeking to relaunch a five-year term with difficulty, for lack of an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
The leaders of the Nupes had initially decided to boycott the dinner, denouncing a “media staging”, before changing their minds, on condition that the agapes boil down to a work meeting. They deplored that the Head of State only spoke on the telephone prior to his initiative, to present the issues, with Jordan Bardella and Eric Ciotti.
The opposition parties presented proposals for referendums on their hobbyhorses: immigration on the right and on the far right, pension reform on the Nupes side. On Wednesday morning, Olivier Véran returned to the notion of “preferendum” which he had mentioned at the start of the week. “The Constitution allows you to ask multiple questions on the same day, in independent polls,” he said.
“I dream of a referendum in which a dozen questions are asked of the French”, on institutions, immigration or even the decriminalization of cannabis, also said in an interview with La Tribune the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu , general secretary of the Horizons party.