Yassine Belattar controversy: “This story shows that the 'comedian' is still one of Emmanuel Macron's evening visitors” | Budget 2025

INTERVIEW – Yassine Belattar in Morocco, 2025 budget… The editorial director of L’IncorrectArthur de Watrigant deciphers the news to Epoch Times.

Epoch Times: What is your opinion on the presence of Yassine Belattar during Emmanuel Macron's trip to Morocco?

Arthur de Watrigant: I note that his presence in the delegation accompanying Emmanuel Macron was not announced. There was a desire to hide his arrival. Moreover, images showing the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu speaking with Yassine Belattar have circulated. And the minister's entourage then explained that they did not “know” the comedian and that they took him for “a technician”. We have known more credible lies!

In reality, this story proves one thing: Yassine Belattar is still one of Emmanuel Macron's evening visitors. Which is not necessarily good news because he is a character who has a fairly busy pedigree: he supported the CCIF which has since been dissolved; he was present at the demonstration against Islamophobia in 2019, and was convicted of death threats in 2023.

I also recall that he had threatened Jean-Michel Blanquer when he was Minister of National Education by declaring: “If I were him, I would avoid setting foot in the 93.”

He is therefore someone who acts like a thug and who, behind his status as a pseudo-comedian, is an activist for the Islamic cause.

Yassine Belattar has often taken an official position against France with classic decolonial speeches. Furthermore, the fact that he has the ear of Emmanuel Macron could explain the ambiguous positions of the head of state on many subjects: Middle East, absence from the march against anti-Semitism, etc.

According to certain rumors, there is, within ministries and at the Élysée, a fear of the Arab street. We can therefore think that this fear is fueled by characters like Yassine Belattar.

But there is another element that particularly shocked me about his coming to Morocco: his clothing. He was accompanying the head of state on a state visit and he dressed completely inappropriately. It's provocation. He accepts his status as a thug and I think that once again, France does not come out of it any better.

“I am not interested in anecdotes,” declared Emmanuel Macron about this controversy. What is your analysis?

So inviting an individual who has been convicted of death threats is an anecdote? It's astonishing. Unfortunately, this means that the President of the Republic protects him, wishes to keep him in his close guard and continue to listen to him.

The finance committees of the National Assembly and the Senate voted this Wednesday, October 30, to abolish the Universal National Service (SNU). A system costing, according to the Court of Auditors, between 3.5 and 5 billion euros per year. What is your reaction?

There are no small savings when you are looking for 60 billion euros. But whatever happens, everything that happens in the finance committees will be reversed. I think the government will push through, whether with article 40, 47 or 49.3 of the Constitution. So what happens in the meantime has, in reality, no impact.

However, thanks to this finance bill, we discover that 10 billion euros are missing, and we would like to know where they have gone.

I am, moreover, quite surprised that through this 2025 budget, no real structural reform is proposed and that we are still dealing with small repairs of the facade. Even if it means going through force, as long as the government carries out major reforms. There are major projects to begin, particularly in National Education. It is one of the top expenditure items with 60 billion euros. The majority of funds are allocated to the salaries of civil servants, while there are many who do not work for National Education, but for other ministries. We also know that 92,000 teachers are absent, and when you ask the ministry's services for the number of civil servants working for National Education, they are unable to give it to you…

Then, even if changes have already taken place, I would say that more efforts can be made on symbolic spending: the Élysée budget, for example.

It's not much, but symbolically it's important. If you ask the French to tighten their belts, the President must, in a way, do it too. Otherwise, the population could, in the long term, no longer consent to the tax. And from the moment there is no longer consent to the tax, the situation becomes almost revolutionary.

Beyond the Élysée, we must, in my opinion, rethink the senior civil service. There are two types of civil servants who represent a fairly large payroll. And since Emmanuel Macron has been in charge, there have been numerous recourses to consulting firms like McKinsey. That is to say that we made duplicates by paying both state agents and these firms. Reducing the number of senior civil servants would obviously not be enough to clean up our accounts, but once again, it would be symbolically strong.

Savings could also be made on everything related to immigration. I am thinking of the “Immigration, asylum and integration” mission which costs around 2 billion euros per year. And 45% of this budget is managed by associations. That is to say that approximately 1 billion euros comes to them each year. However, these associations spend their time preventing the expulsions of illegal immigrants by constantly appealing to the administrative courts. They occupy 42% of the proceedings in these courts which are already clogged! In the end, we finance our own destruction.