This is not trivial, and the Elysée insists on pointing it out: Emmanuel Macron will be visiting Marseille for three days, from Monday to Wednesday. Such a long presidential visit to the region, to France, is extremely rare, not to say unprecedented. The only precedent that appears is another three-day visit. Already by Emmanuel Macron. And already in Marseille, at the beginning of September 2021, to present the “Marseille en grand” plan. We now know well the affection that the president, despite his Picardy origins, has for Marseille, and not just for his football club. But what is the interest, today, of such a visit for Emmanuel Macron?
First respond to a commitment: the Head of State had said that he would come to take stock before the end of the first half of 2023, “and we are there”, notes the Elysée, his eye on the agenda. . “He comes to see the progress of the plan, what is dragging on, what is moving forward, putting pressure,” believes Macronist MP Lionel Royer-Perreaut. It must be said that there is no shortage of problems in this “structurally poor” city, to use the words of the deputy: the Marseilles plan in general focuses on transport, employment, housing, school, health and safety. An entire program. After “catching up”, the Elysée makes it clear that Emmanuel Macron still has “ambitions” for Marseille. He must make announcements for an “act II” of the plan, always with the aim of “changing the daily life of the Marseillais”.
“Deliver”
The Elysee Palace does not make a direct link between this visit to Marseille and the “100 days” launched by President Macron in mid-April, to get out of the pension crisis. But when the presidency of the Republic speaks of “changing the daily life of the people of Marseilles”, it rings in the ears of attentive observers of political life. Because we are right in the lexical field of the current mantras of the executive: we need something concrete for citizens. You need results. You have to “deliver”. An Anglicism difficult to understand by ordinary mortals, which could be translated as “keep one’s promises”.
Moreover, in terms of promises, “everything has been kept, and what has not yet been done is in accordance with the schedule”, assures the Elysée. Returning to Marseille to talk about “Marseille on a large scale” allows the President of the Republic to be very concrete. The state of degradation in terms of schools or housing, for example, means that any improvement will perhaps be more quickly visible than elsewhere. The Elysée has understood this well: the visit “will also be an opportunity to try to show how, through the large-scale Marseille plan, we are able to transform the life of a district; how the action of the President of the Republic’s plan has already made it possible to change things”.
” It’s him “
In Marseille, Emmanuel Macron wants to “take time”. Hence these three days, in order to “illustrate” this “laboratory of its vision of public policies” which aims to irrigate the entire territory. This journey in concrete terms is undoubtedly a necessary passage after months bogged down in the pension reform crisis, and busy as it is on the international scene. Rest assured, the Elysée makes it clear that Emmanuel Macron did not wait for this new visit to Marseille to follow the Marseille file on a large scale. The Palace plays it modest by repeating several times that nothing would have been possible without the commitment and “the perfect cohesion” of the various local authorities (“only” 5 of the 15 billion in Marseilles in general come directly from the State). He even speaks of “shared success”.
But well-ordered “shared success” begins with oneself: “It is indeed a shared success in the sense that it is the President of the Republic who has clearly impelled this plan, explains the Elysée. It was he who initiated it, it was he who wanted it. He is the one who made commitments. It is he who ensures the translation of these commitments. It is he who is partly responsible for the success of this plan. In short, “it’s him.”