The announcement had surprised everyone, its implementation does not seem to satisfy anyone. The National Council for Refoundation, wanted by Emmanuel Macron to illustrate his “new method” of government – more horizontal, less vertical – is launched this Thursday at the National Rugby Center (the… CNR) in Marcoussis. Problem: all the oppositions have declined, a large part of the unions have dried up. Even if the Elysée says that two thirds of the guests will be there, it squeals even in the majority. Where it is sometimes difficult to fully explain what this “thingy” consists of – according to the word of several tenors of the oppositions – with still very vague outlines.
In principle, the CNR must bring citizens into dialogue on major subjects (full employment and reindustrialisation, school, health, aging well, ecological transition), find solutions that can be concretely applied in the field. The initiative looks a bit like the Great National Debate, imagined after the crisis of “yellow vests”. Or to the Citizens’ Convention for the Climate, itself resulting from the Great Debate. A president on the front line – “without filter”, to use an Elysian expression -, and citizens invited to get their hands dirty.
misunderstanding
Two initiatives that have left memories that are contrasting to say the least: “But what did Macron believe?, protests an environmentalist deputy. He thought everyone would be OK with something like the climate convention that didn’t work? For the oppositions – who would prefer a dialogue within the framework of the institutions – we do not transform a President Jupiter into a President of compromise like that. Except that for the majority, we are wrong about the results of the Great Debate and the Citizens’ Convention.
“When you really look at the results of the Citizens’ Convention, you realize that it has made us move forward like never before!, believes MoDem deputy Erwan Balanan. In the ministries, we were told that the process had saved a lot of subjects ten years. The Renaissance MP (RE) Karl Olive recalls that the Great Debate has meanwhile led to the organization of 10,000 exchanges and 2 million contributions. For the elected representative of Yvelines, the CNR, like its two predecessors, is “neither more nor less than a tool of local democracy as we know in communities”, but this time applied at the national level.
Poses
Thus the criticisms of the oppositions and the unions which have already declined or are going there backwards would be pure “political postures”: “They instrumentalise the idea that we are going to instrumentalise them in the CNR”, believes Erwan Balanan. Who even speaks of “bragging” to describe “the satisfaction of certain organizations which refuse to come”. For the Breton deputy, “there is a paradox in constantly asking to be consulted when the president takes initiatives and refusing to enter into a major dialogue for the future of the country”.
But doesn’t the “great dialogue for the future of the country” take place in Parliament? In particular in the Assembly, where the debates have clearly regained interest since the absolute majority is no longer? Announced in the middle of the legislative campaign, the National Council for Refoundation was very quickly seen by some as a means of bypassing this parliamentary work. The President LR of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, is also one of those who declined the invitation. LFI deputy Paul Vannier, who sees this as a new authoritarian temptation from the Head of State, judges that the CNR is “the expression of the weakness and isolation of a president at the end of the exploitation of the Ve Republic, and which is looking for executives to regain control of the agenda. On the majority side, it is recalled that this is only an advisory body, that Parliament will have its place in the end… Finally, except in the event of a referendum, which has not been excluded.
Macronists not all convinced
But at the Elysée, we understood the danger of leaving the idea that the CNR is there to step over the Assembly. So we take tweezers to explain well – and re-explain – that the CNR is not an additional institution. Because even in the macronist camp, some were able to wince, and not the least. Last week, on France Inter, the president of the Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet announced that she would be “extremely vigilant” on the way in which the CNR takes place. We have seen more enthusiastic. Another hiccup: former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, leader of the majority right wing party, Horizon, will not be there, officially retained… in Quebec.
The CNR is therefore not leaving under the best auspices: “I don’t know if it’s dead, but it doesn’t seem very much alive,” said a left-wing deputy on Tuesday in the corridors of the Palais-Bourbon. But the president believes in it and at the Elysée, we are already warning that if we have to take the time, we will take the time. Benevolent with the presidential initiative, Karl Olive believes that “we can only have good surprises”. This is to say if Emmanuel Macron launches with the CNR in an investment with very random results.