The first round of legislative elections takes place this Sunday, June 12. As the election approaches, Guillaume Rouger, referent of the Renaissance party (new name of La République en Marche) answers questions from France Bleu Normandie.
Guillaume Rouger, an Ipsos Sopra Steria poll for France Bleu places the Nupes (New popular, ecological and social union) at the top of the first round with 28% of voting intentions, ahead of the majority coalition, Together, at 27%. What is your reaction to this survey?
It is a reaction of serenity. I believe that what is at stake next Sunday and the following Sunday is an absolutely exceptional one for our country: choosing candidates for the presidential majority means ultimately choosing stability, responsibility, but also ambition, and I believe that our fellow citizens are not mistaken.
How will this translate, in your opinion, in Eure, where there are five constituencies, all held by the majority? What is stability?
Stability means trusting these candidates of the presidential majority, including four outgoing candidates out of five constituencies who have done, who have worked for five years and who will enable us, in the next five years, to meet very concrete challenges who are in front of us. I mean inflation, for example. We have already fought against inflation with mechanisms to freeze gas and electricity prices, and we will continue to do so with new measures on purchasing power, starting in the summer. We must put an end to medical deserts and invest massively in our territories. And I know something about it, in my department of Eure, where we still too often lack doctors and specialists.
How to attract these doctors, these specialists?
Well, you have to keep investing. We must give solutions to these health teams, trust the health professionals. We have to support them in the nursing home projects they want to create, and I think we need investment. We need to continue our efforts. We did it for five years and we absolutely have to continue doing it for the next five years.
Let’s go back to the survey mentioned above. According to this survey, that would make 300 deputies at most for your coalition, with a majority (and the absolute majority, it is 289 seats). Does that worry you?
Obviously. Me, the prospect of the extreme left at the head of the country, it worries me greatly. This is also why, as a Renaissance manager in the Eure, as a volunteer activist, I commit myself with all my might. Do we want to entrust the future of our country to Mr. Mélenchon who, with his absolutely inapplicable program, would ruin France in a few months? We still have the example, a few years ago, of Greece, where when the extreme left took power, the country found itself in an absolutely catastrophic situation in a few months.
And then he accused the police of killing. I was extremely shocked by Mr. Mélenchon’s remarks and I still want to reiterate to all our security forces, the police, the gendarmes and the municipal police, of all my support.
Is purchasing power the key to this election?
Yes, purchasing power is extremely important. We can see that galloping inflation and the measures that have been taken by Bruno Le Maire, at the head of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, have made it possible to place France as a country that best resists these effects of inflation, which are dramatic in European countries.
You said above that Mr. Mélenchon “will ruin the country.” How are the measures taken by the government, and those to come, not going to ruin the country precisely?
Because they are taken in charge. You know, Bruno Le Maire is a rigorous person. The President of the Republic is someone who knows how to manage the economy of a country and the decisions that are taken today, which are support measures for certain categories, which are targeted, will continue to be targeted during summer. These are not measures that come to mobilize and distribute public money that we would not have. We negotiated with the European Union as part of the recovery plan. We continue to find financing and I believe that the logic of full employment which is within reach in our country, also represents the revenue of the future which will allow us to finance these support measures and these social measures. We need a robust economy to be able to continue to support our fellow citizens, especially the most vulnerable.