To mark his first hundred days in Matignon, the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, is in Essonne, Thursday April 18, to unveil his “plan” aimed at placing “authority at the heart of the Republic”. From Viry-Châtillon – a town recently shaken by the death of Shemseddine, 15, beaten to death near his college – the head of government called for a “surge of authority”.
“What do we see today? Authority and rule are too often defied by certain young people,” he lambasted at the start of his speech, before adding: “It reminds us of the feeling that some of our adolescents are slipping cowardly into a form of isolation, individualism and sometimes even towards the worst, towards a form of unleashed, morbid violence, without rules. »
“How can we explain this shift in part of our youth? How can we accept that we attack a principal, a young boy because he is talking with a girl? (…) How can we accept that we touch, we dirty, that we attack what is most sacred in the Republic? », he asked from Viry-Châtillon. Denouncing a “spiral of weakening of authority” and a “surge of violence”, Mr. Attal noted that we “rarely strike against incivility. We don’t often do big demonstrations for authority at school, we don’t do social movements against violence. “And yet the French cannot stand, or rather no longer stand, that we can free ourselves from the common rule,” he continued.
Before his speech, Mr. Attal, who is accompanied by ministers Nicole Belloubet (education) and Éric Dupond-Moretti (justice), delegate minister Sarah El Haïry (childhood, youth, family) and secretary of state Sabrina Agresti -Roubache (city and citizenship), spoke with the teams and beneficiaries of the Viry youth and culture center, according to Matignon
“Authority must apply everywhere”
“Authority must apply everywhere, for everyone,” government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot declared on Wednesday, announcing this move. The Prime Minister must “detail a very precise action plan on this issue which is expected of all, in continuity with our action since 2017,” she added.
Mr. Attal should notably announce the launch of a broad consultation on violence among minors, desired by Emmanuel Macron. “The emergence of ultraviolence in everyday life, among increasingly young citizens, requires long-term work that involves all stakeholders,” declared the Head of State during the Council of Ministers. Wednesday, according to a participant who spoke to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Four young men, three minors and one adult, were indicted for murder after the death, at the beginning of April, of Shemseddine, beaten near his college for a dispute linked to the sister of two of them . They were all placed in pre-trial detention. The Prime Minister’s trip to Viry-Châtillon will also include a judicial component and another on the “role of the school”, in particular on the question of boarding schools, AFP learned from a government source.
Crises
Between the farmers’ movement, the budgetary slippage, the tremors in the presidential camp after the adoption of the “immigration” law and the constant threat of a motion of censure in the National Assembly, the crises marked the first steps of Mr. Attal in Matignon. In a video published on the social network X on Thursday morning, the Prime Minister reaffirmed his “total” determination. “In a context where there are difficulties, where there are French people who doubt, who suffer, who are worried, we manage to talk to each other,” assured the head of government. “Everything cannot be resolved in one day,” he warned.
In addition to authority and education, subjects which were at the center of his general policy declaration to the Assembly at the end of January and at the start of his mandate, the Prime Minister also intends to focus on the theme of work, with a new expected reform of unemployment insurance to toughen the conditions, despite the reservations of his camp. In particular, he proposes reducing the duration of compensation or increasing the working time necessary to benefit from compensation in order to “further encourage the return to employment”.
The head of government wants to make the defense of the “working middle class” the common thread of his visit to Matignon. “There is a social movement in the country which has no spokesperson, which does not say its name, which is not qualified as such. It’s the middle class that works. And who has the feeling that she has all the duties, when others sometimes have all the rights,” he explained to Le Monde at the beginning of April.
The Prime Minister will also have to tackle public finances, whose revenues are lower than expected, according to the executive. While this financial situation has caused tensions in the presidential camp – between Mr. Macron and his Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire –, and before a perilous budgetary autumn looms in Parliament for Mr. Attal, the government must find 10 billion euros in additional savings for the year 2024. Then, in 2025, the government wants to make another 20 billion in savings, compared to 12 initially planned, with the objective of reaching under 3% of the product gross domestic in 2027.
In an opinion made public on Wednesday, the High Council of Public Finances on the stability plan for the period 2024 to 2027 nevertheless estimated that the executive’s budgetary trajectory lacked “credibility” and “coherence”. In this tense budgetary and political context for Emmanuel Macron, the next few weeks in Matignon will also be marked by the European election campaign, where the list of the presidential camp led by Valérie Hayer is in difficulty compared to that of the National Rally led by Jordan Bardella who prances at the top of the polls.