“To converge without denial or renunciation”. Emmanuel Macron formalized his invitation to all political parties for a major meeting on Wednesday August 30 to make decisions that go beyond divisions, and unveiled an agenda that is already dissatisfying the left.
The objective is to build legislative texts “together” and pave the way, “if necessary”, for referendums, writes the head of state in a letter addressed to the parties.
By successive touches, the Head of State thus puts to music “the major political initiative” announced in the middle of summer to get out of the deadlocks in the National Assembly, where his government comes up against the absence of absolute majority.
The party leaders are invited to an afternoon of discussions and a dinner, in a place which will be specified later and which may not be the Elysée.
“You share solid agreements and real disagreements between yourselves. But when the best interests of the country are at stake, I have confidence, like many French people, in our ability to converge without denial or renunciation”, writes Emmanuel Macron in this letter also sent to the presidents of the assemblies.
The discussions will focus on “the international situation and its consequences for France”, “the effectiveness of public action” including new avenues for decentralization and institutional reforms, and “the cohesion of the Nation”, adds -he.
After wanting to dismiss the National Rally (RN) and France insoumise (LFI), the Elysée changed its mind and finally invited these two formations that the macronie nevertheless judges outside the “republican arc”.
“It’s a loyal outstretched hand,” he insists in his letter. “The ambition will be to agree on courses of action that can find concrete and rapid translations in the achievements of the government and the legislative texts built together. The people, through the voice of their representatives and, if necessary, by referendum, will have the last word”.
The Head of State, who has made education the priority of his political return, returns once again to the urban riots of unprecedented violence which followed the death of young Nahel on June 27 during a control police in Nanterre.
– “Next to History” –
These events “revealed in part of our youth a loss of sense of authority and civility, a form of decivilization”, he hammered. “In an ever more brutal world, in an era where human ties threaten to fade, the pillars of our republican ideal of a sovereign and united nation are therefore at stake,” he observes.
Emmanuel Macron still does not specify on which topics he could consult the French by referendum, an option he has mentioned several times in six years of presidency without ever taking action.
In his letter to the party leaders, he evokes a range of questions linked to the “cohesion of the Nation”, such as the place of school, integration, purchasing power or inequalities.
No political formation opposed the principle of this meeting. But the leader of rebellious France Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced a letter disconnected from the realities of the French.
“I think this letter, he must have written it from the planet Mars”, he reacted on TF1, being surprised at the absence of mention of the heat wave or poverty when French people ” stick out their tongue” to buy school supplies for the start of the school year.
Emmanuel Macron “seems to completely miss history”, abounds Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) who specifies that Marine Tondelier will go to the meeting while deploring “the alarming absence of ecological questions and the meager place left to social issues” in the presidential agenda.
Emmanuel Macron does not directly address the issue of immigration either, which must be the subject of a bill from his government in the coming weeks.
In an interview with Le Point magazine last Thursday, the Head of State had not ruled out using again the very controversial article 49.3 of the Constitution, as on pensions, to impose this immigration law without a vote. .
Kept at Matignon during a mini-ministerial reshuffle in July, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne is also preparing for a high-risk budget marathon in the fall.
It must build a finance law that meets both the promise not to raise taxes and the commitment to finally reduce France’s debt. While avoiding a vote of censure from his government which would see all the opposition join forces.
08/26/2023 15:33:28 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP