Reconfinement, taxes, masks ... For more than two hours, Emmanuel Macron gave himself a vast overview of current affairs, this Friday, during a meeting with the Presidential Press Association .
Under the designer candelabras of the restaurant "Monsieur bleu", at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris, the Head of State wanted to shed some light on a comeback unlike any other, necessarily marked by the specter of an epidemic resumption of coronavirus .
Possible reconfigurations
This is a possibility the president is not completely closing the door on. "We are doing everything to avoid re-containment", he reassures, but "nothing can in theory be excluded".
In the case of a scenario of very violent epidemic resumption, which would again disrupt the hospital system, "cases of nationalized or regionalized reconfinement" could be decided, moreover eventually let go of the Head of State.
The mask, not the "alpha and omega"
Himself wearing a white fabric mask, Emmanuel Macron insists that masks do not constitute "the alpha and the omega" of the fight against the epidemic. “It's all the barrier gestures together that count,” he argues. If you wear the mask and don't wash your hands, it's not good ”.
VIDEO. Mask obligatory in Paris: "it gets me a little drunk, but I'm not going to be rebellious"
According to the tenant of the Elysée, the strategy put in place on the eve of the start of the school year aims to "live with the virus". For this, it is necessary to be "vigilant on private gatherings", he emphasizes, especially in contact with the elderly.
Impervious to criticism
The tenant of the Elysée wants to believe that mentalities have changed. “At the start of the crisis, the greatest specialists told me: the French have never worn masks, so they will not wear them. The French do not like this constraint, ”he rewinds .
The head of state says he misunderstood the discussions around free masks, a "crazy debate", according to him. “Which country distributes as many free masks as we do? "He asks, saying that" 55 million "masks have been distributed to low-income families.
Political Newsletter
Every day, political news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers. Learn more
And to dismiss in passing the criticisms of the mayor of Marseille, Michèle Rubirola, according to which the decisions in matters of health policy would be taken too unilaterally "from Paris". "Didier Raoult himself, yesterday (Thursday Editor's note), praised the mask," he recalls, noting, ironically, the "political deadlines" to come "in the coming weeks".
No tax increase planned
Don't touch taxes. For the French to draw on the 100 billion in precautionary savings, they need “confidence” and “visibility”; an “effective strategy against the risk of unemployment” and levies that do not increase.
Otherwise, we would create a “tetany of the middle classes” similar to that which arose after the 2008 crisis, argues Emmanuel Macron.
A debt over several generations
The question therefore arises of repaying the debt resulting from the health crisis. There are two kinds, distinguishes the Head of State. One, called “Covid debt”, is linked to the mechanisms put in place at the height of the crisis, in particular around partial unemployment.
It will be amortized over a “very long time”, ie several generations, he calculates. "This debt of whatever cost was indisputable," assumes the president.
VIDEO. Partial unemployment extended "until November 1," says Castex
The second debt should be used to invest in the transformation of the French economy. "We will reimburse it by the production that will come out, wants to believe Emmanuel Macron. It will be reimbursed by those who have the windfall ”.
For that, "we have to get everyone back to work," he urges. Otherwise, the very financing of our social system would be threatened. And to insist: "We must restore work" because "it builds the collective".
Pension reform will wait
The head of state has not completely forgotten his pension reform, buried by the passage of the health crisis. "The current system is unfair for the most precarious and the non-unionized", he continues to believe, denouncing a system "anti-hero Covid".
PODCAST. "Nothing has changed": the bitterness of Ysaline, 36, nursing assistant in a Paris hospital
Universal reform would be a "relevant response to put back on the table", as would budget reform. The urgency, however, is to fight unemployment and help young people. Pensions will therefore have to be “reorganized over time”.
More resources against violence
A "savage" of society, as Gérald Darmanin denounces? Emmanuel Macron does not use the term, preferring to speak of "trivialization of violence", but shares the observation of a resurgence of violence in everyday life.
"I did not wait for the comments" to see it, he claims, calculating to have "increased by ten thousand the number of police and gendarmes" in the territory. The Head of State calls for "a rapid response on the judicial level" to the excesses, deploring a "pauperized" judicial system.
A "pressure" assumed in Lebanon
After his trip with accents sometimes considered interventionist in Lebanon, following the explosion in Beirut in early August, Emmanuel Macron assumes. "We are fighting for Lebanon because we share a unique bond, an affection", he judges, claiming to have "put pressure" on the Lebanese political class. “Otherwise, the only victim will be the Lebanese people who cannot go into exile,” he says.
Still internationally, the president said he was "extremely worried and demanding vis-à-vis Russia" for a "fully transparent" investigation to be conducted into the poisoning of the Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny.
Not yet in the countryside
Do not talk to him about 2022. "There are enough unexpected crises to have only one objective", reframes Emmanuel Macron, affirming to remain on a "short-term concentration" for what "concerns" him. This does not prevent the president from claiming the ambition of a "stronger France" for ... "the horizon 2030".
