a “brief” speech with no planned announcement, as a necessary step for the head of state

From interview to speech, Emmanuel Macron wants to demonstrate that he is not prevented, despite his relative majority in the Assembly. In his wishes for 2024, the President of the Republic wants to recall the reforms carried out and look forward to the coming year, with the Olympic Games in his sights.

Wishes to turn the page on a turbulent year. Emmanuel Macron will present Sunday December 31 at 8 p.m., for the seventh time since his arrival at the Elysée, his wishes to the French, after a year marked by pension reform, the urban violence of this summer and, recently, the crisis around of immigration law.

In these wishes, that the Élysée announces “brief”, there is no doubt that the president will return to the turbulence of the world, and in particular the two armed conflicts which are striking public opinion: the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and that between Russia and Ukraine. There is also no doubt that he will welcome the reforms adopted: pensions, RSA, immigration, although the last one was adopted with pain, even if it meant fracturing the majority.

Relaunching your five-year term: the perpetual search for a direction

But above all, this evening, the head of state hopes to initiate a new cycle. One more time. Emmanuel Macron seems perpetually forced to look for how to relaunch his five-year term. He will summon, as he tirelessly does every year, the positive things to come because 2024 is the Olympic Games, the reopening of Notre-Dame, the 80th anniversary of the Allied Landing of June 6… The president also wants to give the avenues for future reforms. Economy, work, ecology, education will be discussed pell-mell… More consensual subjects for a sort of “return to the fundamentals of macronism”describes a heavyweight of the majority.

In any case, the Élysée promises for 2024 a “busy schedule”, as a way of demonstrating that, no, Emmanuel Macron is not prevented. It has become a constant, from interview to speech, since the start of this second five-year term: we must at all costs show a president in movement, but a majority executive is already alert in the face of “an alignment of texts, without a skeleton to hold them together”. Clearly, without heading.

No announcement planned

The difficulty this year is that these wishes are somewhere in between. There was the immigration law crisis, before Christmas, and there will be “meeting with the nation” promised for January. Moreover, it will not be one, but several meetings, explains those around him, “a series of meetings, events, moments”. “We don’t know anything, no one knows what’s in his head”, adds a friend of the president. A new initiative, and new faces too, since Emmanuel Macron has changed a certain number of advisors at the Elysée.

Will this also be seen in the government with a reshuffle to find fresh air, which some imagine in January or February? In any case, it is probably not this evening that the head of state will reveal his intentions. The president’s entourage also assures that no announcement is planned. More than ever, wishes for 2024 may well seem like a necessary step.