Neither the opposition -whether on the right or on the left- nor the unions (mainly)… and some figures of the majority are already pale. The government opens its National Refoundation Council in barely a week, but it seems that nobody wants it.
Indeed, while the inaugural session is due to take place next Thursday at the XV de France rugby training center in Marcoussis in Essonne, the executive has so far endured one inning after another. To the point that one wonders who will want to make the trip, apart from members of the government, their direct political supporters and some experts.
larcher draws
Announced before the conclusion of the legislative elections by Emmanuel Macron, the National Council for Refoundation – or CNR for short, an acronym that refers to the federation of resistance forces operated by Jean Moulin under the Occupation, a bombast that had already raised eyebrows- wants ambitious . The body is supposed to get its participants to work on some of the major issues affecting the country and draw the outlines of its future. Elisabeth Borne listed during a press conference at the end of the government seminar on Wednesday: “full employment, school, health, healthy ageing, ecological transition.”
The National Council for Refoundation sees its importance further enhanced by the context that surrounds it, at a time when the intersection of the climate emergency and geopolitical tensions threaten to lead to an energy crisis and a social catastrophe. But the appointment, certainly invigorating, does not make a prescription.
A particularly prominent sign of this vast disavowal: the second character of the State itself opposed an end of inadmissibility. In a letter addressed on August 26 to the Head of State, and sent to FigaroGérard Larcher, the president of the Senate called for the first time to “respect the institutional prerogatives of all”.
“I believe that this body cannot achieve the renewal of democracy to which it aspires,” he said.
“The mechanisms of participatory democracy can help illuminate national representation, but in no way can they replace it,” he added, before specifying: “Wanting to bring together parliamentarians in the same body, who are the only ones constitutionally empowered to approve the law and control the executive, and the representatives of civil society (…) can only lead to a confusion of roles”.
General irritation in LR
That fear that the Executive will ignore Parliament again – while the Elysee must also organize an Energy Defense Council within its walls on Friday – is at the center of the controversy. In his political family, Gérard Larcher was also preceded by Olivier Marleix, head of the Les Républicains deputies, who already declined the invitation in an interview granted in July to JDD.
“It is out of the question to participate in all this. That the President of the Republic does the institutional work that corresponds to him, he is the guardian of the institutions, and that he respects the Parliament that the French have appointed.”
During the summer, his counterpart in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, whom we quote here, also denounced “Macronian devices to circumvent and weaken Parliament.”
The RN sees it as a “communication device”
“Gizmos” always but in the National Rally this time. Because parallel to LR, the main opposition force of the right hemisphere of the National Assembly will not go to Marcoussis either.
“We are not going to participate, it is a scam, it is one more thing, one more contraption in France. There are institutions, we have just been elected, there are 577 deputies who are here to do their job”, evacuated the RN on July 22. deputy elected in the Var, Laure Lavalette, as recalled here TF1.
But to tell the truth, he was just renewing the position fixed at the beginning of June by Marine Le Pen. On June 2, during a press conference, there was still no talk of a “little thing” for this one, but he was already teasing a “toy”.
“We will not partake of Emmanuel Macron’s toy, his latest fashion, whose goal is actually to bypass the National Assembly.”
Before pressing the line the next day, making fun of “an umpteenth communication device that Emmanuel Macron has found to make people believe that he will change his politics and his way of governing.”
The rebels don’t want “blabla”
Everything separates the National Association and the components of NUPES except for one thing: its refusal to lend itself to the National Refoundation Council. On August 26, about 600 kilometers from the offices of the Luxembourg Palace where Gérard Larcher was at the same time finalizing his letter to the President of the Republic, Jean-Luc Mélenchon took advantage of the “Amfis” of rebellious France. to signify that their training should not be counted on either, as noted here blue france.
“There is no possible arrangement” with the government, he launched from the stand erected on the side of Châteauneuf-sur-Isère, mocking through this CNR the pilot episode of “the big talk of season 2”. Regarding season 1, according to this soap opera lover one boy one girlthe Citizen Convention for Climate and the “Great Debate” initiated as a result of the movement of the yellow vests.
All Nupes on the same line
The Socialist Party was also not convinced. On Tuesday, Patrick Kanner, who chairs the PS group in the Senate, described to AFP an “unidentified political object”, fearing a “confusion of legitimacy between participatory democracy and representative democracy”. The National Bureau has yet to definitively put an end to the boycott of the party, during its meeting scheduled for next Tuesday.
Quoted here by the obsIan Brossat was in charge of closing the communist door to the government:
“We do not want to support an operation that aims to bypass Parliament.”
Europe Ecology – The Greens, then? Either. Yannick Jadot, MEP and leader of the EELV, scolded this Wednesday on the waves of franceinfo “an umpteenth commission of which nobody knows how it is structured, what it is going to give, which bypasses Parliament and the Economic, Social and Environmental Council “. The day before, speaking after a session of the direction of her movement, Sandra Regol, an elected deputy in Bas-Rhin and deputy national secretary of the EELV, explained on her behalf to AFP:
“If it was a real work meeting, we would have gone there. But here it sounds more like a communication tool. We didn’t see the point of going there.”
“Masquerade”, “scam”: unions resist
Fishing is only marginally better on the union side for the government. Thus, if the leadership of the State did find the representatives of the CFDT and the CFTC in Marcoussis, FO still reserves its response. The CGT should make a false leap on the other hand. Céline Verzeletti, who participates in the leadership of the Confederation, pointed to a “dialogue masquerade”, and the union will propose to its activists to practice an empty chair policy, during a meeting also scheduled for Tuesday.
Finally, there are those who come and do not think less. Or think even worse. This is the case of the president of the CFE-CGC. While François Hommeril confirmed to franceinfo on Wednesday that the executive union would be there next Thursday, he estimated:
“This National Refoundation Council smacks of fraud.”
bitter terminal
Certainly scalded by this avalanche of refusals but apparently not defeated, the prime minister told the Morning de France Inter on Thursday that “the door would remain open” to the guests who would finally choose to head over. Élisabeth Borne, however, seemed bitter: “I wonder. In the current period in which we face considerable challenges (…) is it natural to reject the discussion even before it has started?”
“I find it a bit paradoxical to refuse to discuss. It is important that we can share the diagnoses, discuss the objectives, ”he further pleaded.
Nobody is a prophet in his country, and one must believe that Elisabeth Borne is not necessarily a prophetess in her majority with respect to her majority. Édouard Philippe, heavyweight of these downtown families who form the basis of the Executive in his capacity as president of Horizons and former head of government, also apologized for Marcoussis according to information from franceinfo. But the excuse in question is nonetheless sound: he will then be on the move in Quebec.
A date that “is still worth it”
Faced with this wave of rejections, would it be better for the government to give up? No, according to Matthieu Croissandeau, our political columnist, this Thursday morning in our studios:
“Certainly, it was launched poorly, it was sold poorly. When you want to do something different, it is better to start talking about it with everyone. And in France, these great masses do not necessarily leave great memories. However, at a time of democratic crisis, where the abstention rates are absolutely terrible, it’s worth thinking about trying to brew differently.”
“But everyone must forget their ulterior motives and that is far from obvious,” our journalist observed.
Source: BFM TV
