President Emmanuel Macron presented Wednesday evening February 22 the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor to former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, hailing a certain "
French temperament
" and a lawyer from "
France from below
".
“
What is honored through you is a certain French temperament.
Provincial and global, cunning and sincere, hardworking and epicurean, peasant and traveler
,” he said during the decoration ceremony at the Élysée.
"
The road is straight but the slope is steep
", the "
France from below
", the "
positive attitude
"... The Head of State lined up the "
raffarinades
", so many caustic expressions which distinguished the Prime Minister of Jacques Chirac between 2002 and 2005. He hailed in passing his pension reform, "
obtained after a hard fight
", as an echo of his own career to impose one in turn and make it one of the markers of his second five year term.
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Reference to Johnny Hallyday
Emmanuel Macron also made extensive reference to Johnny Hallyday, Jean-Pierre Raffarin's idol, and his repertoire.
"
Your efforts in preparation open the doors to you, not of the penitentiary, but of the ESCP
", the Superior School of Commerce of Paris, he recalled.
"
For you life will begin
," he continued.
Commercial at the roaster Jacques Vabre after school, "
you see that for coffee as in melancholy, black is black
", he said again.
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After his career in the center-right, Jean-Pierre Raffarin joined Emmanuel Macron and became special representative of France in China in 2018, a country in which he has been interested for a long time.
“
You, the king of balance, were made for the Middle Empire
”, launched the head of state again.