The millennium of the foundation of the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel will have the honors of the presidential agenda this Monday. On the eve of a new day of union mobilization against the pension reform, Emmanuel Macron is expected in the afternoon on the site, symbol of the “French spirit” of “resilience” and “resistance”.
Continuing a memorial itinerary started on May 8 with a tribute to Jean Moulin in Lyon, he will also launch preparations on Tuesday for the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings of June 6, 1944, which will take place in 2024.
A classic passage for tenants of the Elysée
On the famous rocky islet of the English Channel, the Head of State must visit the exhibition “The Archangel’s Residence”, which traces through around thirty objects the history of this jewel of French heritage. For his speech, the question is whether he will make the link with political news, punctuated in recent weeks by the long pension crisis, while his popularity rating is rebounding after several months of strong mistrust.
Since François Mitterrand in 1983, presidents have flocked to this emblematic place to convey their message. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy chose to launch his presidential campaign there. The “walls and the eternity of the Mount” embody, just like the forces which landed on June 6, 1944 in Normandy, “the notions of resistance and resilience”, underlines an adviser to Emmanuel Macron.
A symbol of the ecological “battles” to be carried out
The silhouette of the abbey, between land and sea, symbolizes “everything that makes the French a people of conquerors and builders”, further notes the Elysée. “It is a place that attests to the ability of our people to adapt to the times” and which embodies the “battles that must and will have to be waged” in terms of ecology and climate change.
The site of Mont Saint-Michel, faced with recurring problems of silting, has been the subject of gigantic works, completed in 2015, to allow it to become an island again. Already in 1983, François Mitterrand had come to say that man had to come to the aid of nature to repair what he himself had helped to destroy.
The busiest site in the country outside Ile-de-France, Mont-Saint-Michel attracted 2.8 million visitors last year, including 1.3 million for the abbey. It will not be closed to visitors during the presidential visit, but the prefect of La Manche has set up a protective perimeter, with searches at the entrance, for the millennium commemorations. It must be said that the Head of State was regularly greeted by concerts of saucepans during his travels after the adoption of the pension reform in mid-April.