20 minutes of speech, before a long sequence of questions and answers: Emmanuel Macron puts on his clothes as President of the Council of the European Union this Wednesday, January 19, in front of the Parliament of Strasbourg. The opportunity to wave high the flag of Europe, less than 3 months before the presidential election. But beware, warns his entourage: this sequence is not an act of campaign, no offense to the political opponents of Emmanuel Macron who furbish their arguments.
If the French presidency of the Council of the European Union, the “PFUE” for insiders, was already launched on December 9, during a press conference at the Elysée, with the triptych “Relaunch, power, belonging “and a long list of projects, there is no question of repeating yourself today: the president will take “height”, they say. He will do like his predecessors: offer a vision, a course, be a driving force… A very French obsession, which also fuels the trial in arrogance brought against all the French heads of state who have entered the costume of President of the Council of the European Union.
From 11:20 a.m., Emmanuel Macron should take up its red thread, that of European sovereignty and deliver its vision of our common identity, in the hope of convincing, beyond its political camp, a Parliament that it will need to move forward on its priorities: European minimum wage , border carbon tax, reform of the Schengen area. An intervention which will be very followed in the European capitals because he speaks in the name of the 27. And it will be well 27 different nations which will be represented in front of him. However, we are going to hear a lot of French spoken later in the European Parliament: more than a quarter of the registered speakers are French MEPs who have come to scrap with the Head of State.
The political groups have made room for them and the national and European issues will largely intertwine. We will therefore see a presidential candidate, the ecologist Yannick Jadot, but also the LR François-Xavier Bellamy, the Insoumise Manon Aubry, the RNs Jordan Bardella and Nicolas Bay… A day presented as strategic by the macronists.
It will be far from the Franco-French exercise, warns the Elysée, which hammers it: it is not a declaration of candidacy. But the Elysée announces the color: “It is not just an institutional meeting, the exercise has a very large political dimension, it will not be disconnected from the concerns of the French“.
But why, precisely, want to bring everything back to national politics? Firstly because his adversaries are working on it. Marine Le Pen on Tuesday in Paris, Eric Zemmour on Wednesday in Calais, Jean-Luc Mélenchon in Strasbourg, Yannick Jadot even in the hemicyle: all of them campaigned European against Emmanuel Macron. And it is the fault of the Head of State, himself, hammer his detractors, who recall that he refused to shift the PFUE, accepting that it hits the Elysian countryside.
Because if the French president is going to speak, the candidate of tomorrow could benefit from it: Europe has been and will be a major theme of his campaign. With him for Europe, or against it with the others: a dividing line methodically dug for 5 years, in France as on the European scene.