Those who were expecting something new may have been disappointed, but they were not disoriented by “L’Evénement” with Emmanuel Macron, Wednesday October 26 on France 2, because this interview had at least the merit of consistency. A little over an hour of a President who is in turn professorial with his paintings, pedagogue on inflation, protective when he resumed this cap that we know him so well since the Covid: “We will weather this storm”.
>> Inflation, pensions, 49.3… What to remember from the interview with Emmanuel Macron in “L’Evénement”, on France 2
But behind that, it was a breathless Emmanuel Macron, on the defensive, without a doubt and ultimately without questioning. The subtitle of his entire speech was: we don’t change anything, we continue.
Emmanuel Macron assumes his choices and his policy. Assuming, in terms of political communication, is not bad, but you only reach those who are already convinced. You go no further. Does this method allow him to really provide answers to the concerns of the French since it was still the idea of this interview? Does he just hear? Does it really feel the country?
To the family struggling with their wagon weighed down by inflation, he applauds working France. We talk to him about salary, he answers employee dividends. We talk to him about ecology, he answers electric cars.
There have been a few announcements, especially for businesses. Some nice punchlines, “In France we don’t have oil but we have lithium”, but in reality, this interview could have taken place a year ago or even before his campaign. “Macron season 2” has never looked so much like “Macron season 1”.
Why change? The idea is not to change for the sake of changing but to change after having heard the country, the concerns, the state of mind of the French and incidentally the new situation in Parliament. Justifying is his action, it is not necessarily reassuring. And that, it seems to me that the President does not perceive it. But he probably never really perceived it. How many times have we heard the President or ministers explain that if a political decision was not accepted, it was because the French had not understood and that more education was needed?
I was talking about consistency a little earlier, there is probably even a form of consistency. At the Elysée we do not think of ourselves in a second five-year term, we see ourselves in one and the same presidency. This is why Emmanuel Macron insists that his course has not changed since the start. On Wednesday evening, he even took up his slogan from 2017, “liberate, protect”.
It may be forgetting too quickly that the world has changed. Covid, war in Ukraine, inflation: 2022 is not 2017. Unless the only one who hasn’t changed is Emmanuel Macron.