Emmanuel Macron continues his offensive to turn the page on the pension crisis: on the occasion of the first anniversary of his re-election on Monday, he announces his intention to “reengage” in all directions in the debate, and defends the principle of a large immigration law.
In a long exchange with eleven readers of Le Parisien carried out Friday at the Élysée and posted online Sunday evening by the daily, the Head of State responds on all topics, from the executive’s report to future projects, passing by the possibility of seeing Marine Le Pen succeed him in 2027. The far-right representative will come to power “if we do not know how to respond to the challenges of the country and if we install a habit of lying or denial of reality”, puts- he keeps it.
Very much behind since the beginning of the year while Elisabeth Borne and her government defended retirement at 64, the president recognizes that he should have “wet” more on the flagship reform of his second five-year term. “Perhaps the mistake was not being present enough to give consistency and carry this reform myself,” he says. He asserts, however, without going overboard, that his Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has his “trust” because “she is doing her job well in a difficult time”.
And he seems determined to go from one extreme to the other in terms of media presence. “I have to re-engage in public debate because there are things that are unclear. So I do it everywhere, ”says Emmanuel Macron, who has given himself a hundred days to relaunch a deadlocked mandate and has begun to return to rub shoulders with the French and their discontent on the ground.
Conspired during a walkabout in Alsace, followed wherever he is announced by demonstrators and their concerts of saucepans, he rejects the trials of “contempt” and claims to accept the challenge. But he also adds that he wants to “fight against violence and incivility”, calling for “punishment” of those who cut off the power to the places where he travels.
To the French, he still predicts difficult times on the inflation front, without announcing any new immediate measures to deal with them.
“I’ll be honest, food prices, it’s going to be tough until the end of the summer,” warns the president. According to him, “the key is that work pays better”, but that will depend on “employers and social dialogue”. While waiting for Elisabeth Borne to specify the roadmap of the government on Wednesday, still deprived of an absolute majority in the National Assembly, Emmanuel Macron is being cautious on his sites.
But he announces that he wants, on immigration, “a single text” that is both “effective and fair”, to “toughen our rules” so that “those who have no reason to be here” can be more quickly “walked home” while improving integration. Exit, therefore, the hypothesis of a project chopped up into several texts to facilitate its adoption, as he himself had mentioned a month ago.
However, he does not say with what majority he intends to pass it. “I can’t tell you what the path will be. We must build a political majority,” he eludes, while recalling that “the use of article 49.3, it is the Prime Minister who proposes it” above all. But Elisabeth Borne said she no longer wanted to resort, outside the budget, to this constitutional tool, the use of which for pensions has been strongly denounced.
Confirming his desire to move forward on the subject of institutions, even though the presidents of the assemblies consider that the project is not a priority for the time being, Emmanuel Macron affirmed that he was going to “transmit a proposal to them”, “for see what there would be a path to.”
Among these measures, “I am not in favor of the abolition of the post of Prime Minister”, indicated the Head of State, while François Hollande had advocated the disappearance of the function.
On the social front, he puts back on the job without further details the reform of the RSA “so that an hour of work can never be less interesting” than this device, as well as “solidarity at the source” so that all those who are entitled to the aids receive them and, thus, to fight against the fraud.
Emmanuel Macron displays a certain caution on the generalization of the universal national service (SNU). “I’m not going to tell you that the next school year the SNU will be compulsory. It’s a matter of scaling up. A few departments, then a few more,” he says.
While a reader criticizes him for not talking enough about ecology, the Head of State confirms that he wants to “launch a major ecological restoration project for our schools”. On health, he reaffirms his desire to “accelerate the delegation of acts (prescription of certain drugs open to pharmacists, vision checks by opticians, etc.)”, but deplores without taking any tweezers: “I don’t care about corporatism”.
