Message received? The president of the MoDem, François Bayrou, ally of Macronia, advocated Saturday to "completely change the method" of government, believing that governing in democracy was not to "stand firm", but to "govern with the people".
"I believe that governing is not only governing in the name of the people for a defined time, but governing with the people," Bayrou said at the MoDem University in Guidel (Morbihan), after the interventions of the leaders of the other parties of Emmanuel Macron's majority, Stéphane Séjour (Renaissance) and Édouard Philippe (Horizons).
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For Mr. Bayrou, "democracy is about considering citizens as co-responsible. Democracy is about taking seriously the idea that those who elect you are decision-makers. And not just once every five years." "It requires us to completely change the method of government. We are not there. Because the powers in general believe that it is as it used to be. The powers in general believe that it is enough to hold on," he said.
"I believe that democracy will not resist it"
But "in the age of ubiquitous screens and social networks, this is not conceivable". "The weight of public opinion is such that if there is not this mutual understanding, this shared understanding, then you are in confrontation. And if you are in confrontation, you can no longer govern," Bayrou said. "If we can't do that ... I believe that democracy will not resist it," said the MoDem leader.
"We must therefore make a powerful effort that will challenge our ways of being to invent the principle of involving citizens in political decisions of primary importance. It requires respect, it requires collective intelligence, it requires generosity to share information."
"When you're in power and you have information that makes you make decisions, you don't want to share it. That's how it is, because everyone understands that information is also power," added Bayrou, who has regularly regretted a lack of pedagogy on the part of the government during the pension reform.
"This effort is being conducted nowhere in the world. It is up to us, and this is not the first time in history, to be at the forefront of this reinvention of democracy," he concluded.
