“We have to move up a gear, there is a lack of direction”, urged a heavyweight from the executive shortly before the broadcast.
Did Emmanuel Macron convince?
The Head of State was confronted for an hour, this Wednesday evening, with questions relating to numerous subjects of domestic politics during the program "L'Evenement", on France 2. Two weeks earlier, international subjects had been addressed in the same television format.
Emmanuel Macron returned, in particular, to wages and purchasing power, pensions, reindustrialization, health and immigration.
"We are going through a crisis: the war is returning to Europe, and it has multiple consequences, on energy (…), on prices", immediately recognized the Head of State, who guaranteed to have to "weather through this storm".
Back to the main information and measures announced this Wednesday.
Aid that continues, but in a more “targeted” way
Without being able to avoid a rise in the price of gas and electricity, which will be "15%" in the first months, Emmanuel Macron assured that the aid granted to the French would continue.
"Target aid, support those who need it most, protect our industry", this is the three-point strategy presented by the Head of State on Wednesday.
Among the priorities put forward therefore, that of “targeting aid” in order to “protect the weakest”.
Faced with rising energy prices and inflation, the executive plans in particular to strengthen “devices for students, both with our Crous and the associations with which we work”, advances Emmanuel Macron.
The President of the Republic also mentioned his wish not to see this increase in energy prices “spread to the world of industry”.
Thus, for “very small businesses and communities”, the aid granted will be the same as that granted to households.
For "small and medium-sized businesses, and for those with significant energy needs", including bakers and farmers in particular, the government plans to "put in place a mechanism to cushion the increases" and to "guarantee a reasonable price ".
It must be presented on Friday.
Finally, for the largest companies and large groups, measures should also be put in place “as soon as they start to suffer from the increase in prices”.
The Head of State also mentioned the establishment of aid tickets of “several million or even tens of millions of euros”.
“France of work and merit”
These French men and women who work with dignity, "it's our model", "I believe in the France of work and merit", insisted Emmanuel Macron, after watching a short report on the daily life of a family that does not leave not on vacation for years.
The Head of State highlighted the tax exemption of overtime, a device that will be "intensified".
He again opposed the re-indexation of wages to inflation, fearing “a loop in the rise in prices”.
“If we want to create jobs, the solution is not to reindex wages to inflation.
We have a country where we already have a lot of indexed mechanisms, he continued.
The minimum wage, for example, has increased by more than 8% this year.
Pension reform
This is one of the government's toughest negotiating topics: pension reform.
“If we do not reform pensions, we have two solutions.
The first is to increase pension contributions and that means less purchasing power.
The other possibility is to lower pensions, it is unbearable for our retirees, ”insisted Emmanuel Macron.
And to add: “There is only one way to do it, if we are lucid and as we live longer, it is to work longer.
Demography means that we have to work longer”.
He said he was "completely open" to leaving at age 64, in the event of an extension of the contribution period, recalling that the calculation methods will not change, for civil servants as for private sector employees.
A device specific to long careers must also be invested.
An “alliance” with the desired LRs
Asked about the motions of censure voted in particular by the Insoumis and the National Rally, Emmanuel Macron castigated this "alliance of extremes".
“They are on the side of disorder and cynicism,” he insisted, assuring that the government was right “with the relative majority, to wear 49.3”
He also mentioned the possibility of an agreement with the LR deputies and those of the centrist Liot group for the adoption of texts in the Assembly, believing that they had "sent a clear message" by not voting on the motions of censorship tabled on the budgets.
“I think that with these parliamentarians, who today are not in the majority, the government and the majority in the Assembly have an interest in working to pass the labor reform, the pension reform, the reform on immigration that we are going to do, the reform that we are going to do on renewable energies.
And yes, I wish there was an alliance,” he said.
On the Ecological Transition: helping households and producing more electric cars
“At the end of this five-year term, we will be able to produce 2 million electric vehicles,” assured the president, highlighting the “progress” of manufacturers in this area.
“The more we produce, then we will bring the cost down,” he said, adding that additional lithium mines would be reopened.
A crucial mineral in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles.
The Head of State recalled that citizens could “cumulate the conversion allowance and the ecological bonus, which is increased to 7,000 euros”.
An increase in aid announced Tuesday by Christophe Béchu, Minister of Ecological Transition, when discussing the establishment of fines for unauthorized vehicles in low emission zones (ZFE).
The fight against medical deserts
While the pediatric services issued the alert, in the midst of an epidemic of bronchiolitis, Emmanuel Macron admitted that France did not have "enough doctors, in town as in the hospital" and this, despite the Ségur de la santé , which according to the Head of State, has allowed an increase in wages "between 184 and 400 euros per month" per month.
“We need to have an organization, at the level of each territory, he insisted.
We must pay much more for nights, emergencies, encourage our city doctors to take more calls”, and “convince those who have left to come back”.
"We have lost 6,000 general practitioners in recent years," acknowledged the head of state.
"We are therefore going to allow all doctors who are about to retire to retire but to be able to continue their activities and keep all their income, without paying pension rights".
The executive also hopes to give more responsibilities to nurses, massage therapists and other paramedical professions in order to relieve doctors.
Macron refutes any "existential link between immigration and insecurity"
Ten days after the tragic disappearance of Lola, in Paris, Emmanuel Macron was also questioned about the "OQTF", obligation to leave French territory.
"We must reform our laws in depth to be able to better welcome those we want to welcome and to be able to bring the others back to their country more quickly", he indicated, while recalling that he would "never make an existential link between immigration and insecurity”.
“When we look at delinquency, in Paris for example, where we have a high concentration of this illegal immigration, yes illegal immigration is very present in the facts of delinquency”, he recognized.
The Head of State says he wants to "integrate" those fleeing countries in crisis and those who come to work, and fight against "illegal immigration".