Take your hand while taking the light. Emmanuel Macron gave a twenty-minute interview to the 8 p.m. news on TF1 and France 2 on Sunday to try to take advantage of the visits of Charles III and Pope Francis to France, largely discussing the challenges of the start of the school year, inflation to immigration through the ecological transition.
An unpleasant political surprise fell a few hours before the television interview: the only minister in the running in the senatorial elections, Secretary of State Sonia Backès, was beaten on Sunday in New Caledonia by an independence candidate, a first in the history of the Senate . A subject that the Head of State did not mention, the retention or not of the minister in government having not been recorded either at the Elysée or at Matignon.
While Pope Francis called for efforts from France and Europe in welcoming migrants, Emmanuel Macron agreed with the sovereign pontiff, while believing that “we French, we are doing our part”. “We cannot accommodate all the misery in the world,” he added, using the famous truncated phrase of former socialist prime minister Michel Rocard.
To the countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, in particular Tunisia, he hopes that Europe will offer “to take on board studies, experts, materials, etc. on their coasts to dismantle these smugglers” as part of “a respectful partnership”.
“France has decided to bring back its ambassador”, whom Paris has so far refused to recall, and “we are ending our military cooperation with Niger”, announced Emmanuel Macron, indicating that the 1,500 French soldiers would leave “in the weeks and months to come” and that the withdrawal would be completed “by the end of the year”.
Engaged in a two-month standoff with the Nigerien junta, Emmanuel Macron had accused the military in power of holding the French ambassador “hostage” inside the embassy.
“There is no miracle solution” to the rise in the price of a barrel of crude oil, declared the head of state, affirming that the government was going to ask fuel distributors to sell at cost price, renouncing in the process to the idea of ??authorizing manufacturers to sell fuel at a loss.
Emmanuel Macron also intends to put in place an agreement on “moderation of margins” for large agri-food manufacturers. “We have large groups who have raised the prices of some of their brands and so we want to put them back around the table,” he said on TF1 and France 2.
France will exit coal by 2027, by converting its last two power plants, President Emmanuel Macron declared on Sunday, specifying a presidential campaign promise. The head of state, however, ruled out banning gas boilers as part of ecological planning.
Emmanuel Macron expressed concern on Sunday evening about a possible military offensive by Azerbaijan against Armenia, stressing that Baku “threatens” the common border and the “territorial integrity” of this country. “France is very vigilant about the territorial integrity of Armenia because that is what is at stake,” he said on TF1 and France 2. “Today we have a Russia which is complicit in ‘Azerbaijan, a Turkey which has always been in support of these maneuvers and a power which is uninhibited and which threatens the border of Armenia”, he clarified, after the lightning victory of Baku against the separatists of Upper Karabakh.
