“Political life does not stop at a fight”: Macron receives and thanks the former deputies of the majority

“There will continue to be mornings of combat and afternoons of conquests. And you will be part of it,” Emmanuel Macron assured when receiving the former majority deputies on Monday, including Richard Ferrand and Christophe Castaner, defeated in the legislative elections, according to the participants.

“There is no abandoned territory, there is no lost territory,” added the president.

The Head of State began his speech by thanking the nearly 150 guests for “having supported our project” and for “having contributed so much to what is now our balance sheet”. Surrounded by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet, Emmanuel Macron had invited elected officials from the previous legislature who had not represented themselves or who were defeated in the June elections.

“Political life does not stop at a fight, win or lose. There will be other electoral deadlines” and “there are many ways to carry out a project,” he added, according to his comments recounted by a participant.

“Special thought” for Ferrand and Castaner

In this context, “I consider that we have a duty: it is to help them return to the extrapolitical life in which they were before. We must accompany them in this period. It is a condition that allows us to be credible tomorrow to ask others to commit themselves”, he continued, noting that a certain number of them had left their jobs in the private sector to sit in the Assembly.

“There will be other deadlines: the municipal, the senatorial, the European. Some are already thinking about the presidential elections,” he explained, provoking laughter in the audience, “the menu is already very busy.”

“What I want more than anything is for you to continue transforming the country”, continued Emmanuel Macron, “for all this I would need you, your role will be fundamental”.

He said he had “a special thought” for the former Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner and the former President of the Assembly Richard Ferrand, “these fellow travelers” beaten in the Alpes de Haute Provence and in Finistere. “I will always be there because you have always been there for me, because you took a lot of risks.”