An outstretched hand and a volley of green wood.
Two and a half months after the start of the examination of the pension reform in the National Assembly, the President of the Republic emerged from his silence on Wednesday on TF1 and France 2 to give his reading of the sequence which plunges France into a political and social crisis with an uncertain outcome.
To try to get out of it, above all.
This first requires the search for a coalition agreement.
Hence the outstretched hand to all those who do not recognize themselves in the violence of recent debates in the National Assembly: members of the Republicans, the Socialist Party but also of the small Liot group or environmentalists.
Clearly, all those who did not vote for the motion of censure against the government or to those who voted for it reluctantly.
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LIVE - Pension reform: Emmanuel Macron reiterates his confidence in Élisabeth Borne, but calls on her to "enlarge the majority"
But the coalition's bet is risky and Emmanuel Macron only formulates it half-heartedly.
"
It's not our political tradition
," he admits.
It's hard to build coalitions.
But there are political individuals with their convictions who are ready to work with the forces of the majority
.
In the entourage of the President of the Republic, we are much clearer.
“
Of course he asked Elisabeth Borne to build a coalition.
He does not pronounce the word so as not to make it resonate with
combinazione
but it is indeed a coalition that it is about
, ”assures a very close to the president.
Everyone is scarified by these two months of violent debates in Parliament.
Those who did not vote for censure can take a step towards the government.
Maybe today things are ripe...
Circle of the Head of State
Last year, after the second round of legislative elections, Elisabeth Borne failed to build a coalition agreement.
“
Since July, the political deal has changed
, we want to believe in the entourage of the head of state.
Everyone is scarified by these two months of violent debates in Parliament.
Those who did not vote for censure can take a step towards the government
.
Maybe today, things are ripe…
” It's up to Elisabeth Borne to check it out.
“I hope she will succeed”
In any case, this is the mission that Emmanuel Macron entrusts to him to try to break the impasse.
"
The mandate that I have given him is to continue to expand this majority as much as possible with men and women of goodwill who, on the right and on the left or on the side of ecology, are ready to move forward with it on the priorities that I have set
", explains the Head of State.
They draw the course of his second five-year term: the republican order, school, health and education.
He is giving his prime minister three to four weeks to achieve this.
“
I hope she will succeed
,” he adds.
Failing that... it'll be time to wave one of the cards he has left in his hand that he's so far refused to take out: breakup or reshuffle.
Elisabeth Borne is warned, and the deputies with her.
So here it is under tension.
Just like the opponents of the head of state who took advantage of his interview to settle some accounts.
Read also“Contempt”, “blaze”, “denial”… oppositions and unions target Emmanuel Macron after his interview on pension reform
"
He's been chomping at the bit for weeks, but he couldn't express himself because he wasn't in an institutional position to do so
," said a relative.
Now that Parliament has adopted the text, and there is only the Constitutional Council hurdle left to overcome for it to come into force before the end of the year, Emmanuel Macron is stepping up to the front.
“
This reform is necessary.
It does not please me, I would have liked not to do it, but that is also why I made the commitment to do it
, ”explains the Head of State in the preamble.
Its reading is clinical: the National Assembly then the Senate examined the text;
parliamentary procedures, including Article 49.3, allowed its adoption, the Constitutional Council examines appeals.
“
I have no regrets
”, except for not “
having succeeded in convincing on the necessity
” of the reform, however concedes the head of state.
And that's the problem.
If the whole of the parliamentary procedure was indeed respected, the text is the subject of a strong rejection in the country.
And Emmanuel Macron finds himself embarked, like others before him, in a balance of power with the street, many of which within the majority fear that he will become radicalized and fall into violent clashes as during the crisis of "vests yellow”.
Unions targeted
It already started on Monday after the use of article 49.3 when spontaneous demonstrations all over France turned into a riot.
In passing, he evokes the invasion of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump and places of power in Brasília, by those of Jair Bolsonaro.
“
We cannot accept either
the rebels
or the factions,
” he decides.
If the Head of State denounces the “
groups
” which “
use extreme violence to attack elected officials of the Republic
”, he is implicitly targeting those who blow on the embers from behind the scenes.
Starting with Les Insoumis by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Tuesday evening, when he received the deputies and senators of his majority at the Élysée, he was a little more explicit: "
You held the debates in unprecedented circumstances of incivility, brutality and heckling with remarks that are not acceptable
.
Another target in Emmanuel Macron's sights are the unions, which he deplores that they have not offered any "
compromise
" on pension reform.
The attack makes them jump
.
It was not won under these conditions that the union leaders agree to return to the discussion table.
The President of the Republic invites them, however, by trying to lure them with negotiations on professional branches below the minimum wage, long careers or professional wear and tear at the end of their careers.
The political parties which opposed its reform also take it for their rank, accused of having only the “
deficit
” as their only project.
Another target of the Head of State, "
large companies which make such exceptional income that they manage to use this money to buy back their own shares
".
"There is still a bit of cynicism at work
," he observes, asking his government to work on an "
exceptional contribution
".
