“There are still fights to be fought” on the immigration law, believes the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune, having resigned from the government for a while for his disagreements on this text and while rumors of a reshuffle are coming back with insistence.
“Do I think that after having exchanged a lot with the Prime Minister, we have moved the text in the right direction? Yes. Is it finished? No, there are still battles to be fought. Do I want to participate? Yes,” says the minister representing the left wing of the macronie, in an interview with Parisian posted online Wednesday evening.
Clément Beaune, who had organized a dinner with other ministers who disagreed on the text on the evening of the vote, considers that “we will have to return to the principle of the student deposit”, “revisit the measure on Personalized Housing Assistance (APL)” and “avoid any new debate on State Medical Aid” for undocumented foreigners.
He admits that within the majority there are “sensitivities, different histories and complicated debates”. “But after a difficult fight, my temperament is to get back in the ring. And I want to get back in the ring. »
And to plead in favor of “overcoming” the right and the left while the text on immigration was voted on with the support of the right and the extreme right, which divided the majority. But, in the end, only the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau resigned after the vote on the text.
“We must preserve the legacy of 2017: overcoming, the European fight and the fight against the far right. Without forgetting societal progress, such as the end of life,” believes Clément Beaune.
Despite the vote of the National Rally in favor of this law, he assures that “the divide between us, the pro-Europeans, and the nationalists – who were for leaving the euro, against the European vaccine, in support of Mr. Putin – exists more than ever.”
On a possible reshuffle, he recalls that “to be in a government, you must first be offered it. And then, you have to be useful.” “As long as these conditions are met, I will be happy to serve.”
Announcements on highway projects
Minister for Transport Clément Beaune indicated on Wednesday that he would announce “next week” which highway projects the government intends to abandon, and which projects it will continue.
“Starting next week I will announce unprecedented measures to abandon motorway projects,” declared Beaune. He announced this sorting of motorway projects in April 2023, as protests mounted against the construction of the A69 which should link Toulouse to Castres.
“It is clear that we are going to reduce the share of road projects – there will not be zero, there will be fewer – to give clear priority to public transport and rail transport,” he then said, promising “a project-by-project analysis” and a list “by early summer.”
In September, Clément Beaune again promised “strong decisions in the coming weeks”. For ongoing projects “we are going to reduce their impact on the environment” and for “projects which have not yet been launched, we are going to maintain some of them, since there are some that are useful, and we are going to arrest some,” he said.
The minister recently gave the green light to the A69, and also to the A31bis which must double the existing A31 around Thionville, in Moselle.
Among the projects studied, we can cite the Arles bypass in Bouches-du-Rhône (A54), that of Rouen (A133 and A134), the completion of the Rouen-Orléans axis with bypasses of Chartres and Dreux (A154), the short A412 in Chablais in Haute-Savoie or the widening of the A63 south of Bordeaux, towards Spain.
In view of the European elections, Clément Beaune also suggests “a common European loan in order to finance the ecological transition for the middle and lower classes”, like the EU’s post-Covid recovery plan.