French President Emmanuel Macron admitted in a televised speech on Tuesday that his decision had not brought the hoped-for serenity to the country.
AFP
French President Emmanuel Macron clearly made his mea culpa on Tuesday on the dissolution of the National Assembly, which sowed “divisions” and “instability”. Deprived of a large part of his influence since his camp lost the early legislative elections this summer, the Head of State also announced, during his wishes for the coming year 2025, that he would ask the French to “decide” on certain “determining issues” to prepare for the future.
A way of giving a glimpse of referendums, mentioned many times, but never organized since his arrival at the Elysée in 2017. Or new citizens’ conventions, after those on the end of life or ecology.
Recorded in the winter garden of the presidential palace, these eighth wishes from Emmanuel Macron are also the shortest. They completed them in eleven minutes. And for good reason: the president no longer has the means to decide everything as he used to do and falls back on his role as “guarantor”, according to those around him.
He focused at length, at the start of his speech, on the successes of 2024. With an innovation in form: a two-minute video showing the Olympic Games and the reopening of Notre-Dame.
“More instability than serenity”
But Emmanuel Macron did not avoid the most serious political crisis of the Fifth Republic, with a clearer mea culpa than the one outlined at the beginning of December.
“I must recognize this evening that the dissolution has for the moment brought more divisions to the Assembly than solutions for the French,” he said. “Lucidity and humility require us to recognize that at this time, this decision has produced more instability than serenity. And I take my full share of it.”
A political instability which “is not specific to France, we also see it among our German friends who have just dissolved their Assembly”, he put it into perspective.
Despite everything, the president called on political forces to make 2025 the year of “collective recovery”. “Because we cannot afford to wait. The year 2025 must be a year of action,” urged the head of state, addressing the just-formed government of his ally François Bayrou, the fourth Prime Minister of the year.
Emmanuel Macron also promised to “ensure” that France “continues to be attractive”, “works and innovates more”, continues to create jobs and “ensures its growth by maintaining its finances”. And this, while the country begins 2025 without a voted budget, despite alarming deficits.
“Europeans, be less naive”
While the international and Europe remain presidential prerogatives, Emmanuel Macron also urged Europeans to be more realistic in matters of trade or agriculture. “Europeans must put an end to naivety. Say no to trade laws dictated by others and which we are the only ones to still respect. Say no to everything that makes us depend on others without compensation and without preparing our future,” he insisted.
The announcement, at the beginning of December, of the finalization of the free trade agreement between the European Union and four Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) notably relaunched a wave of protests in the French agricultural world and European.
“We need a European awakening, a scientific, intellectual, technological, industrial awakening, an agricultural, energy and ecological awakening,” he pleaded.
With these wishes, Emmanuel Macron hopes to place himself above all, and keep away the little music of some of his opponents who consider his resignation inevitable before the end of his mandate, in 2027.
(afp)
