Pictures without sound. On Friday, we will see Emmanuel Macron review the troops, preside over the military parade on the Champs-Elysées, then raise his nose to the sky to admire the passage of sixty planes and twenty-eight helicopters. Perhaps we will see him, in the evening, having dinner at the Louvre Museum with the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. But we will not hear more from the Head of State on July 14.
A national holiday, without presidential expression, and, he hopes, without new urban riots. Macron promised to act “with the greatest determination” in case of “overflows”, after the violence that shook several neighborhoods and city centers in the wake of the death of Nahel killed in Nanterre by police fire. While in Paris, Gérald Darmanin, detailed the device on Wednesday “exceptional” scheduled for July 13 and 14 – 45,000 police and gendarmes mobilized every evening – the President, from Vilnius (Lithuania), after the NATO summit, warned: “Respect for the republican order, which I reaffirmed very clearly a hundred days ago, must be respected everywhere.” Allusion to his “one hundred days of appeasement, unity, ambitions and actions”. It was to resolve another crisis, the protest against the pension reform, that the President had set this deadline, during a speech on April 17. And made an appointment with the 15.1 million viewers: “Next July 14 should allow us to make an initial assessment.”
“Make Time”
At the start of the week, France Télévisions and TF1 were still ready to carry out the interview at the Elysée. And then, no. The Palace announced on Wednesday that the President would rather take the floor “in the next few days”. The idea of a regional press interview next week is in the air. In reality, Macron has not been thrilled with the television format for several days. Obsolete, cramped, not really disruptive. Friday evening, bringing together his advisers, he questions them: basically, do the French have an appetite for the traditional interview, on the day of the national holiday? Are they expecting it? In six years, he himself has only complied with this ritual twice. His entourage is asked to repack the option and has since worked to deflate the wait around the national holiday. “That means around the 14th, not right on the 14th”, try an adviser. “There is still a good week of action after”, adds a regular interlocutor of the Head of State.
The presidential rabbit, however, leaves the impression of an improvisation. Admittedly, the fear of a flashback in working-class neighborhoods is very real. In addition, the events which followed the death of Nahel on June 27 in Nanterre came to strike the reflection of the President, who refuses to establish an on-the-spot diagnosis. “The crisis in the suburbs made the conclusion of the film unscrew. You have to invent a new ending and that takes a little time. tempers a ministerial adviser. But for the rest, was the President ready to take stock of the hundred days that he granted himself? Did he have a course in mind for the start of the school year? “Wanting to give yourself time before speaking on the grounds that you have to analyze the root causes of the riots is a huge joke, stamps a Renaissance deputy. The mandate cannot be an endlessly repeated and inevitably disappointed quest around this question: will the President regain control? Will he give a course? Another prefers that Macron declines the interview of the 14th “rather than not announcing anything. He cannot pass from rare speech to empty speech”. To wait, it will be necessary to be satisfied this Thursday with a communication in the Council of Ministers on the results of the hundred days, where the laws passed and the projects launched will be shelled (reindustrialization, salary increases for teachers, reform of the vocational school, etc.). “I don’t feel like nothing happened,” defends a minister.
No waiting for the French
In the aftermath of the yellow vests crisis, Emmanuel Macron shot down his card of “great debate”. Stuck by the unpopularity of the carbon tax, he drew a citizens’ convention for the climate. As he will try in 2022 to launch a National Council for Refoundation to build consensual reforms despite a fragmented political landscape. THE “hundred days” are added to this list of gambles that the President does not know how to conclude. “The hundred days are perceived as a deadline. It turns into:is the Prime Minister going to be maintained or not”, while the goal was to accelerate the reforms”, regrets an adviser to the Elysée. “When you launch a communication device, the risk is that it will come back boomerang”, grinds a Macronist deputy.
Politico-media agitation is inversely proportional to the interest of public opinion. Last week, the reshuffle came dead last in the topics of conversation with the French, recalls Frédéric Dabi. “There is absolutely no expectation of a reshuffle or a presidential speech, it is not the subject of the French, decides the opinion director general of Ifop. The term “hundred days” did not print.” He notes, however, that “This period changed things in the good direction for Emmanuel Macron”, whose unpopularity has waned since the pension reform, over a period of “strong media exposure strategy” in field movements. In Ifop’s monthly dashboard, the number of French “very unhappy” of its stock fell from 47% to 37% between April and June. “He loosened up his relationship with the French”, concludes Frédéric Dabi. Not knowing what to say to them.