Emmanuel Macron condemned this Monday the questioning of European law, “old French disease”, in allusion to the attacks in this direction of several presidential candidates for 2022 including Valérie Pécresse, Xavier Bertrand and Michel Barnier on the right.
“I am astonished to remain modest, to see that as soon as there is a problem we return to this old French disease which consists in saying: It is Europe”, texts “signed, then ratified sovereignly”. “What is this business?” We must therefore defend them, ”he said, opening the States General of Justice in Chasseneuil-du-Poitou, on the outskirts of Poitiers.
Tackle the Republicans
“Our justice was built for a long time in the dialogue of judges at European level. This dialogue accompanied the political construction of the EU, it preceded it, ”said the President. He recalled in particular that texts, such as the European Convention on Human Rights “which France has sovereignly joined”, constitute “fundamental tools for defending human rights. This French and European humanism which makes us and distinguishes us is to be defended, ”he insisted.
“A democracy, where mistrust is allowed to settle, justice to be attacked, is a democracy that undermines its own foundations”, warned Emmanuel Macron, after the questioning of the primacy of European law by various candidates for the LR investiture for the French presidential election against a backdrop of tensions between the European Commission and Poland.
Best interests of France?
Valérie Pécresse, who has just taken back her card from LR, challenged the primacy of European law over the “constitutional identities” of EU member states. “Europe is the Europe of nations. This means that our constitutional laws, our constitutional identity, each and every sovereign state, must take precedence over European jurisdiction, ”she defended.
Before her, the former Brexit negotiator and also candidate for the nomination Michel Barnier defended, to the amazement of many of his former colleagues in Brussels, the need for “legal sovereignty”, but only in matters of immigration , because there will be “more Brexits” if nothing changes.
Xavier Bertrand, who has also just re-joined LR, proposed, for his part, to introduce into the Constitution “a mechanism to safeguard the superior interests of France” and Eric Ciotti (LR) wishes “to modify article 55 of the Constitution to affirm the primacy of the Constitution over European decisions ”.