A speech of almost half an hour. Emmanuel Macron spoke to the French on Tuesday, November 9, to boost the vaccine booster in the face of the rebound of the Covid-19 epidemic in Europe. But above all, he devoted two thirds of his speech to praising his record, to projecting himself into the future and to defending his values. Three axes developed by a president almost in campaign.
A president’s or a candidate’s speech? The ambiguity made several opponents react strongly, including the candidate of La France insoumise for 2022, Jean-Luc Mélenchon: “Macron is president-candidate and candidate-president. He questions the loyalty of the presidential election. Are we discussing an assessment or a program for the future? “
Praise for his presidential record
Once sent the message on the vaccine booster against the Covid, the Head of State explained at length how he had “protected” the country during the pandemic. “Our nation has always been committed to protecting each of us, educationally, economically and socially”, he said, before recapitulating the measures taken for youth. And first for “children”, because “we were one of the countries in the world which opened its schools the most”. Then for “students” who benefited from “meal at 1 euro” and D'”specific aid for scholarship holderss “.
He then declared to have avoided, thanks to the aid paid during the epidemic, “almost half a million of our compatriots to fall into poverty”. And he insisted on the “Partial unemployment”, loans guaranteed by the State and the aid that accompanied “artists, artisans, self-employed, employees, entrepreneurs”, or even caregivers “increased from 200 to 400 euros net per month on average”.
The Head of State ended with a more general eulogy on the French economic situation. “Our growth exceeds 6%. France is at the head of the major European economies”, did he declare. And to add: “Unemployment has been at its lowest for almost fifteen years, and we are one of the only countries in the world where purchasing power has continued to rise, on average, and where poverty has not increased. We have achieved this by controlling our public spending, since our deficit will be less than 5% of our gross domestic product from this year. “
Promises for the end of the five-year term … and beyond
Emmanuel Macron then made commitments for the coming months, even beyond the presidential election, scheduled for April 10 and 24, 2022. “We are and will continue to adapt our responses as needed. This is why, for example, state guaranteed loans will be extended until June 2022”, he thus promised. He also recalled that he had just announced “the launch for March 1, 2022 ‘of the” Youth engagement contract for the 500,000 unemployed and least qualified young people “.
But it is on the pension issue that he most clearly projected himself into a second five-year term. “The conditions are not met to relaunch this project today”, he said, adding that it was only a postponement: “From 2022, he asserted, “In order to preserve the pensions of our retirees and solidarity between our generations, we will need to take clear decisions (…) Work longer by pushing back the legal age”, delete the “special diets “ and harmonize “public and private”. Either the main lines of the reform that his former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe had to abandon in the spring of 2020 in the face of the urgency of the health crisis.
Another announcement that briskly spans the presidential election: the revival, “for the first time in decades “, the construction of nuclear reactors on French soil.
Work, Europe: reaffirmed values
Emmanuel Macron’s speech took even more the form of a campaign harangue when he underlined the values that guided him. He thus put forward “work” like “The red wire” of his “action” to justify its reform of unemployment insurance. Likewise, he said that it would take “work more” as part of a future pension reform.
He also posed as a defender of the European Union, of which France will take the rotating presidency in January 2022. “Only a European, united and voluntary agreement, can provide each of our European countries with a relay and a strike force. It is enough to open your eyes to measure how much our interests meet and agree”, he proclaimed. An answer to the speeches of the extreme right, carried in particular by two of its main potential competitors, Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour: “Let us not be afraid! Let us believe in a France which remains itself (…) strong in its spirit of resistance (…) to submission, to dogmas, to obscurantism, to the return of nationalism.”