Trying to move forward, despite the challenge: Elisabeth Borne wanted to provide “concrete” answers on identity documents on Friday in Indre, despite the demonstrations which again punctuated her trip, ahead of the presentation of her roadmap next week.
“Borne emerges”, cry out about twenty demonstrators kept at a distance from the Prime Minister, who came to visit the town hall of Buzançais the services for issuing passports and identity cards.
The head of government prefers to look into the deadlines for obtaining these titles, which reach in this small town three months, against two on average in the country. “It’s unbearable,” she breathes, pledging to halve them by summer.
The average delays of 66 days will be reduced “to 30 days this summer” and “to 20 days in the fall” everywhere in France, she promises again, while this question has poisoned for many months the executive who is struggling to do so. respond.
“A lot of concerns, expectations are expressed”, agrees Elisabeth Borne, weakened at Matignon since the use of 49-3 which allowed the adoption without a vote of the pension reform and stoked the dispute.
To get out of the crisis, the Prime Minister is counting on her roadmap, which she will present to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday. The objective: “to respond (..) as quickly as possible, to concrete difficulties” and to the “expectations” of the French, on questions of work, order or even public services. All while keeping the countdown of the president, set at 100 days.
Elisabeth Borne had previously praised all the aid (employment, taxes, digital access) gathered in the France Services house in Valençay, where she stopped at the start of the morning, without demonstrators around.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced prefectural decrees prohibiting demonstrations on Friday in certain areas of Ms. Borne’s visit, such as in Châteauroux, where around 200 people were waiting for the Prime Minister firmly, with loud whistles and saucepans. Some were repelled by the police as he passed.
“Suspending constitutional freedoms is illegal outside of Article 16. Are we there?” asked the leader of insubordinate France on Twitter.
However, Elisabeth Borne challenged during a press briefing any “ban on demonstrating”, since “moreover there are people who demonstrate”.
As for the unions, the Prime Minister said she “regrets” the inter-union’s refusal to go to the Elysee Palace this week, even though the organizations had warned that they would decline any invitation before the processions on May 1. “I think we can disagree (but) it’s important to talk to each other,” she pleaded.
Failing to reconnect with the population, Elisabeth Borne, at the lowest in the polls, repeated in the middle of the day on the antenna of France Bleu that she “assumed” the pension reform.
Despite the challenge and a relative majority in the National Assembly, there is no question of changing the method either: it still wants to build majorities “text by text”.
But she did not explicitly restate her commitment to no longer resort to 49-3 outside financial texts, a promise on which Emmanuel Macron seemed to express some reservations.
Concentrating the critics, the head of state had been booed in Alsace on Wednesday then heckled Thursday in Hérault, and his exchanges appeared stormy.
“I don’t know how to argue with a saucepan, I admit. I know how to discuss with people, including people who are angry”, defended it on Europe 1 the Minister Delegate for the Budget Gabriel Attal.
Several other ministers also experienced hectic trips on Friday.
The Minister of SMEs and Tourism Olivia Grégoire canceled a small part of her visit to the Pays de la Loire region, because of demonstrators.
The Minister of Health François Braun was heckled by some 250 people with saucepans in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Demonstrators were also heard in Saône-et-Loire, where the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt was going, according to the local press.
21/04/2023 16:40:33 – Buzançais (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
