For the former Prime Minister of Jacques Chirac, who chairs the NGO "Leaders for Peace", Europe must change its priorities.
He welcomes the role of Emmanuel Macron, returns to the soap opera Muselier en Paca, and thinks that his former LR family is not (completely) offside for the presidential election.
What needs to be changed in Europe?
JEAN-PIERRE RAFFARIN.
We must stay the course and change governance.
It was a strength for Emmanuel Macron to start his five-year term with a clear European orientation.
It is positioned as the leader in Europe.
We must review the order of priorities, give more importance to European sovereignty, ecological transition, the issue of migration.
To bring Europe closer to the people, we need to invent a new governance: the strategy shared at European level, the operational responsibility of the States.
Let us draw inspiration from the COPs, UN environmental conferences, to involve civil societies more closely.
There were hiccups in the management of the Covid crisis, what lessons can be learned?
The blockages are linked to bureaucratic procedures but also to rules such as unanimity.
Thierry Breton (
Editor's note: European Commissioner for the Internal Market
) is right to insist on the return to EU sovereignty on the technological level.
Europe is playing big, the cold war between China and the United States is lasting.
If we are not able to resist the double pressure, regaining sovereignty and asserting our independence, we will go out of history.
At the convention launched today to launch new ideas.
The United States adds up the stimulus plans, China is out of the crisis: Europe must go faster, stronger?
Let us be careful about the assessment of the crisis country by country, it has done a lot of damage with consequences that are still invisible, various social unrest may appear.
We don't only see blue skies in the American outlook.
Public opinion will call for the recovery to be accelerated, but we must think carefully about the quality of this recovery, not just the timing.
Europe must be able to imagine new, more qualitative paths
That is to say ?
I do not believe in the utopia of a sovereign France in all areas, from paracetamol to steel.
We must define our conception of
essential sovereignty
, the subjects on which we want national independence articulated with Europe.
We must reorganize our economic and industrial fabric by balancing the demands of European sovereignty and the needs of international cooperation.
Emmanuel Macron intends to make Europe a theme for the presidential campaign: does it pay off electorally?
Europe is an asset for the future of France… so it is not a handicap for an election. With Angela Merkel's withdrawal, the president is in a position of leadership, he has a vision of the future of Europe. In a world, yet in the grip of tensions, there is a subject where a consensus emerges, it is the need to protect humanity by protecting the planet. The speeches of Xi Jinping and Joe Biden are close on this project. There is a consensus around the Paris agreement. Europe can support this
Planisation
project
, that is to say the humanization of globalization. This goes beyond an electoral project for 2022, President Macron has created the conditions to mobilize European energy in this direction and replace France in its role as the engine of the EU.
How do you see the post-Merkel era, with a possible strong presence of the Grünen (the German Greens)?
I'm not afraid of the German Greens, they were in Gerhard Schröder's government when I was Prime Minister.
They should not be confused with the French Greens, who are in the ideological reconversion and do not have the form of freshness that one can find among the Germans.
What did the Muselier soap opera inspire you in the Paca region?
A deep sadness.
Forty years after the Defferre laws, decentralization is still underestimated.
Parisian political staffs still dream of confiscating local elections.
Wanting to take a territorial election hostage to influence the next national election is unfortunately nothing new, but I am deeply disappointed by the contempt of some for
The Decentralized Republic
as our constitution recognizes it.
Read also Regional Paca: behind the scenes of the turnaround on the right
LR should have let Renaud Muselier do it?
When a party has in its ranks an outgoing regional president, backed by the support of the three leaders of the big cities and that he is not trusted, it is a serious breach of the spirit of decentralization.
When we are lucky enough to have personalities like Renaud Muselier, Hubert Falco or Christian Estrosi, who have been ministers, we trust them.
All three were loyal to Chirac and Sarkozy, on the attitude towards the FN we have never seen them float.
Does the RN come out reinforced?
Voters are confused, but it's not sure the RN will benefit.
Everyone has seen the fight and the results of Renaud Muselier.
LR still has a future, between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen?
The Republicans keep a strong territorial presence, and will probably succeed in good regional and departmental elections.
For the rest, the right has always been made up of two distinct currents - Bonapartist and Orleanist, UDF and RPR, Balladur and Chirac… The right wins when it brings together these two currents.
Will she be able to bring them together in the future?
We still have no visibility on what the presidential election will be, whether it will take place in a recovery phase or a new layer of fog with the virus ...
Does the internal crisis not mortgage an LR candidacy for the presidential election?
Part of the right is against Macron, another part is with him: the position of the outgoing president in the fall will be decisive.
In order for the right to be able to claim the second round, it must be united.
This would mean that the entrepreneurial right, more with the President today, would decide to leave him.
Nothing is played.
Nicolas Sarkozy must intervene in this crisis?
Nicolas Sarkozy seeks the gathering, he has personal relations with the protagonists, he is faithful in friendship and I have no doubt that he has conversations with each other.
I think he will intervene in decisive moments, but he will not participate in quarrels.
