By receiving us in the office of his Res Publica Foundation, a stone's throw from the National Assembly, the former minister of François Mitterrand confides that he too, with his wife, has been infected with Covid.
This figure of the left, who has retraced fifty years of political commitment in his recent memoirs "Who wants to risk his life will save it" (Ed. Robert Laffont), warns of the dangers that threaten the Republic.
President Macron is positive for Covid.
What do you think ?
JEAN-PIERRE CHEVÈNEMENT
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This is part of the risks of the job.
The President of the Republic is obliged to meet a lot of people and cannot always work remotely.
I wish him to overcome the disease, as I myself overcame it completely asymptomatically.
He is a young and vigorous man: he will go through this ordeal.
Nine months after the start of the health crisis, how do you judge its management?
There is a part of improvisation because we are faced with phenomena that we do not know.
But the criticisms made of government policy, which is too centralized, prove to be rather futile if we look at what is happening in the United States, a very decentralized country, where we end up in a regrettable cacophony.
The real answer is science, with vaccines, hoping they are effective.
I'm not a fan of it, but I will probably get vaccinated.
This crisis has shown France's dependence on foreign countries.
What lessons can be learned from this?
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This crisis sheds light on the dependencies that have been allowed to be created over the past forty years with a policy of strong currency and supply in low-cost countries where we have relocated half of our industry.
It is extremely serious.
There was a recklessness of the elites and political leaders who forgot that industry contributed to employment in our country, to technological dynamism and to raising a trade balance which is currently in deficit of more than 70 billion euros.
The country must therefore be reindustrialised, but on the basis of planning, of a Ministry of Industry which deserves the name, relying on competent teams of engineers and above all on political will.
"I will undoubtedly be vaccinated", assures Jean-Pierre Chevènement.
/ LP / Arnaud Journois
There is a lot of talk about green recovery.
Is this referendum to include the climate cause in the Constitution a good idea?
At best, it will be unnecessary.
But it risks promoting the ambient technophobia that green ideology is developing in the population.
We are going to include in the Constitution a certain number of vague concepts which will only be able to slow down the reindustrialization of the country.
These are the followers of degrowth who want to introduce them after having already introduced the principle of precaution, at the time of Jacques Chirac.
They no longer work for progress but place catastrophe on the horizon of history.
I am for responsible, pragmatic ecology.
I have always believed in the scientific spirit and in the ability of man to solve the problems he creates.
You, former Minister of the Interior, do you use the term police violence?
I do not use it because that would be to blame the institution of the national police or the national gendarmerie for intrinsic, systemic violence.
The hatred of the police state and of the "cop" is a dated, superficial, a little bohemian belief, unfortunately too common among young people.
And the legacy of a badly digested Marxism which makes the police the armed wing of a State in the service of capital.
There is an anti-cop hatred that is very popular with the times.
However, these two bodies are well kept, severely punished when they break free from their ethics, the IGPN does its job well.
I know it doesn't move much, but the number of attacks on law enforcement officials has grown in recent years.
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But how to get out of this cycle?
There is a deviation from the public spirit which is not corrected.
I suggest that we help our fellow citizens to reflect on what the Republic, democracy and the rule of law are: three rather confused notions in the current state of public debate.
And that we show to what extent resourcing in the Republic, that is to say in the ideal of the common good, is an absolutely necessary thing if we do not want to see the rule of law degenerate towards a system of powerlessness and democracy allow anything and everything.
The republican ideal must serve as the backbone of the State, the police, and National Education.
It must be taught at school, it is fundamental.
This article 24, which prohibits the malicious distribution of images of law enforcement agencies, should we keep?
It is obvious that the police must be protected, given the habit of designating scapegoats on social networks.
But justice must have access to the filmed documents.
How to restore the bond of trust between police and citizens?
This trust existed at certain times, the police were applauded after Charlie Hebdo.
When I developed the community police in 1999, it was very well received: the neighborhoods demanded blue, uniforms.
Is it a good idea to restore it?
We have to come back to this in difficult ridings.
It consumes a lot of manpower, the mistake was to want to generalize it.
You are worried about a fragmentation of the Republic: will the future law against separatism be able to remedy it?
Is political Islam compatible with the Republic?
Radical Islamism no;
Republican Islam, Quiet Islam, yes.
We must promote this republican Islam.
Ghaleb Bencheikh has rightly said that Muslims must be delivered from a literalist interpretation of sacred texts.
Through the Fondation de l'islam de France, which he chairs, there is educational work to show the interpretation that can be given to certain sermons, and especially that which should not be given.
I had proposed to create in Strasbourg a faculty of Muslim theology, which would give the State the right to supervise the training of the top level of imams.
Today, it is the Muslim brothers who form most of the imams, in Château-Chinon and Saint-Denis in particular.
It is a problem.
And secularism?
It needs to be better understood, including by those who lead us.
We make secularism a kind of cold administrative code or worse still the synonym of atheism.
But no, secularism which is not turned against any religion is linked to a belief in the ability of man to make his reason work and through debate to define the right points of balance, which the law then records and made prevail, including by the public force.
Secularism separates the religious space and the "common" space, the republican space.
“Emmanuel Macron has shown that he is able to progress.
»/ LP / Arnaud Journois
Anne Hidalgo said that environmentalists have a job to do on the values of the Republic, on secularism ...
It is a fair trial, but one that would benefit from not being mixed up with electoral considerations.
In your book you recall the role you played in the union of the left: is it still possible in 2020?
The left would first have to be able to make a critical analysis of its course, to be able to distance itself from the economic logic of neoliberalism which has led to the crisis we are experiencing.
Those responsible for the left are not there yet.
Who could take up the torch from the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Arnaud Montebourg?
Mélenchon has a variable geometry speech, he often makes me dizzy.
Montebourg has marked a certain positive orientation on the productive recovery, it remains for him to express himself on the sovereign aspects.
Could Montebourg make a good left-wing candidate for 2022?
I am careful not to move forward on this deadline for which I have not taken any decision to support this or that candidate.
I will support whoever my republican patriotism designates for me.
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Could it be Emmanuel Macron, whom you recall in your book that he participated in your 2002 campaign?
If he follows through on his promise to reinvent himself, to regain the technological, industrial, agricultural and health independence of France.
It strikes me as a line that makes sense.
Macron has shown he is capable of progressing.
Is he consulting you?
He sees me from time to time… like he sees many others.
I don't consider my opinions binding him in the least.
I am not dealing with Emmanuel Macron, who has the ability to correct his initial mistakes, a judgment as unfavorable as many politicians, whom I also understand because their career was shattered by his election in 2017. Today, we don't see anyone who could beat Macron in 2022.
What are his handicaps?
In politics we need clear ideas, but Emmanuel Macron's problem is that we have the impression that he sometimes has to arbitrate between the different political sensitivities that have joined him, for example in the field of security. .
This can affect the clarity of the message.
I encourage him to persevere.