Emmanuel Macron as warlord, Gabriel Attal confined to political politics

While the bilateral security agreement between France and Ukraine was adopted by a large majority on Tuesday in the National Assembly, the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic share the roles.

The deputies voted by 372 votes to 99 in favor of the French aid strategy for Ukraine. The National Assembly therefore largely adopted, on Tuesday March 12, the bilateral security agreement signed by Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky between France and Ukraine, without the votes of La France insoumise and with the abstention of the National Rally. A symbolic victory, but a victory nonetheless, for the troops of the head of state. What now appears is that the President and the Prime Minister are dividing up the roles.

In the wake of this vote, the President announced that he would speak to the French on Thursday evening at 8 p.m. on TF1 and France 2. Emmanuel Macron’s entourage is convinced of this: this vote, non-binding and purely symbolic, validates the President’s line by a very large majority. While in recent weeks, the head of state has sowed trouble, including among his supporters, when he affirmed that nothing should be excluded, not even the sending of ground troops to Ukraine, ensuring in passing that the France’s support is limitless.

Gabriel Attal, hitter in the hemicycle

Far from the image, which had even provoked mockery, of Emmanuel Macron seated at the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin or picking up his phone to “do not humiliate Russia”. Since then, Ukraine has become the central theme at the start of the campaign less than three months before the European elections. Champion of the collective surge, Emmanuel Macron remembers that the start of the war in Ukraine had impacted – even disrupted – the last presidential campaign, probably to his advantage.

To Emmanuel Macron, therefore, the overhang, the big issues and the costume of the war leader on TV. To Gabriel Attal, the role of the slugger in the hemicycle, against the sworn and designated enemy the National Rally: “To abstain is to flee. To flee one’s responsibilities in the face of history. To betray what is dearest to us since June 18, 1940: the spirit of resistance.” At the risk of seeing the debate turn solely into a duel and a confrontation with Marine Le Pen’s troops. “You instilled the idea that by defending the interests of France, by being faithful to the Gaullian tradition, we would act as relays for foreign interests. For this too, Mr. Prime Minister, you will be severely judged by our compatriots”, castigates the president of the group in the hemicycle.

“I heard you, Madame Le Pen, calling for General de Gaulle and Gaullism. I would simply say in response to that that all the positions you have held on Russia are, each time, calls from the 18 June reversed”, replied Gabriel Attal. Politician politics, reciprocal accusations, while the Prime Minister estimated, Tuesday afternoon, that we were “at a tipping point in the conflict”.