EDITORIAL. After the pension reform, the executive moves from the “new world” to next week

Mission: to restore calm. Elisabeth Borne will not detail her roadmap until Wednesday, April 26, and yet the government’s course for the next hundred days is clear: appease anger, extinguish fires. And it won’t be easy, we saw it with the stormy welcome reserved for the head of state on Thursday in Hérault and Wednesday in Alsace.

Result: side government announcements, no more salty, place sweet as we say in the majority. Every day its good news, its categorical measure aimed at stroking in the direction of the hair a fringe of the population. Wednesday was the removal of the loss of a license point for minor speeding. And the next day, the announcement of salary increases for teachers ranging from 100 to 230 euros net per month.

Government margins are very low

First on the financial level. Bruno Le Maire repeats that he wants to bring France’s debt below the 3% of GDP mark in 2027. So no more “whatever it costs”, exceptional checks and shields of all kinds, the government must find sweet that is not expensive. And the political leeway is no less narrow. In the absence of a solid majority, and sometimes even a majority, the time has come to pass for the major divisive reform projects which inflame Parliament. Make way for small, short and consensual texts and decrees, regulatory changes. With the intention of doing something concrete, of affecting people’s daily lives by reducing administrative procedures and improving the functioning of public services, in particular replacements at school or access to a doctor for patients. who lack it.

For the executive, it is no longer a question of preparing for the next few decades, but rather of managing the next week, then the next. Gone is the advent of the “new world”, the watchword of 2017, make way for meager, small-time governance. In short, to repair the dishes broken by the social crisis, here is the new period macronism forced to convert to modest action and humble words. Not easy…