The vote is symbolic for two reasons. On a declaration by the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, it will have no effective impact. But he inscribed black on white that there was no national union. This Monday, the Senate rejected the government's deconfinement plan by 89 votes to 81 with 174 abstentions. This obscures a little more the start of the executive week, already marked by outcry from all directions.
Edouard Philippe did not spare his time to convince the senators that, at this "critical moment", "we cannot remain confined". If the subject has hardened this weekend, to counter the "relaxation" of the French observed for ten days by the government, to the point of leaving doubt on the possibility of deconfining the country on May 11, objective remains that one at the top of the state.
Little heard of Macron's call
The head of government hammered him: "The containment was justified by the urgency, but its social and economic cost is colossal. »Economic life? She must, he insists, "resume imperatively and quickly with adjustments, with good will." "
School closings? "Probably a time bomb" for the most vulnerable. The Prime Minister announces aid of 200 euros for 800,000 “precarious or modest” young people under the age of 25. He also presents adjustments on the wearing of masks in college (compulsory only when social distancing cannot be respected) or on cults (he says he is "ready to study" the resumption of services on May 29).
VIDEO. Philippe announces aid of 200 euros for 800,000 young people under 25
In the process, as if to support the point, Emmanuel Macron called from the Elysee to address deconfinement, "essential step", with "calm, pragmatism and goodwill", ensuring that the "last details" will be announced Thursday.
Against the government, distrust infuses
Not enough to convince senators, when the time comes to vote. The Republicans, the majority in the Senate, choose to abstain and support where it hurts, through the voice of their group president, Bruno Retailleau: "We can no longer take your word for it because it was the subject too many contradictions or even untruths. "
Communists and socialists opt for the vote against. To take, explains the boss of the group PS Patrick Kanner, as "an alert for the government", "a vote of global distrust on the management of the crisis by the government". Management which he judges, in tune with the PCF, "catastrophic" concerning the masks.
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VIDEO. Edouard Philippe: "There have never been hidden stocks" in mass retail
“Politics is taking back its rights. It is an opposition chamber that opposes. But she has so many ideas on what to do that there are 174 abstentions, ”retorts a close friend of the Prime Minister. The leader of the LREM senators, François Patriat, goes further: "At a time when we need national unity to protect the health of the French and get the country going again, this is a vote that does not honor the Senate. It gives credit to all suspicions, all oppositions, all doubts, often unfounded, where we need commitment. This is the whole problem for the government, while uncertainties and reluctance form the backdrop for this decisive week.
