“A major political initiative”. This is how Emmanuel Macron presented this meeting of the main party leaders, promised before the summer break, and which will be held on Wednesday afternoon. The stated ambition: to find “ways” to “move the country forward, beyond political divisions, in the absence of an absolute majority. We take stock of this presidential invitation.
The summit meeting will begin at 3 p.m. and will be held behind closed doors between the president and the party leaders gathered around a table, an “unprecedented” format according to the head of state’s entourage. No collaborator will be present and no device is provided for the press who will only be able to film the comings and goings outside the meeting place.
The meeting will take place at the education house of the Legion of Honor of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), an emblematic school of the republican “meritocracy”, it is reserved for descendants of decorated French orders, located moreover in a city affected by the riots at the end of June, beginning of July. Participants are invited to two round tables on the international situation and institutional reforms, followed by a dinner around all the questions raised by the recent urban riots, school, authority, integration, inequalities, according to the Elysée.
All the leaders of the parties represented in Parliament accepted the invitation, not without suspicion on the side of the opposition, which suspects Emmanuel Macron of seeking above all to relaunch a five-year term still struggling. The left-wing leaders gathered within the Nupes (Manuel Bompard of LFI, Marine Tondelier of EELV, Olivier Faure of the PS and Fabien Roussel of the PCF) have also decided to boycott the dinner, denouncing a “media staging “, before changing his mind on the condition that the agape boils down to a work meeting.
The president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, also warned against any “verbal illusionism” and called for “clear acts” on “the authority of the State” and “the identity of France”. The head of state also called him to present the issues of the meeting, just as he had done with the boss of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti. The President of the Republic claims to want a “frank, loyal, direct discussion” to “act together”, in “unity”, in the service of the French.
Without an absolute majority in the National Assembly since his re-election in 2022, Emmanuel Macron hopes to find common ground on key but often divisive issues such as immigration, order or work. An often acrobatic exercise for the government of Elisabeth Borne, suspended on each controversial text at the risk of a motion of censure, as on the pension reform in the spring. “The president wants to avoid the deadlock by all the means at his disposal,” confirms an executive from the presidential camp.
According to his letter of invitation to party leaders, Emmanuel Macron claims to want to build legislative texts “together” and pave the way, “if necessary”, for referendums. “He wants to see the disagreements and, if they are insurmountable, to see on which subjects the French can decide” by way of the referendum, according to a framework of the presidential camp.
The opposition parties have already presented referendum proposals on their hobbyhorses, immigration on the right and the far right, pension reform on the Nupes side. The presidential party, Renaissance, will plead for its part for a referendum on “between three and five questions”, in particular on the reform of institutions. “It’s a way, if people vote yes, to relegitimize themselves,” points out a majority official. Government spokesman Olivier Véran suggested the “preferendum” track, which allows multiple questions to be asked to measure voters’ preferences. A proposal that looks like the multiple-question referendum that Emmanuel Macron had considered during his first term, after the “Yellow Vests” crisis, then the citizens’ convention on the climate, without taking action.