Pension reform: Emmanuel Macron and the “a little strange” choice of speaking at 13 Hours

Some urged him to intervene quickly, others to stall until next week. Finally, it will be Wednesday, March 22. Emmanuel Macron will be the guest of the television news of France 2 and TF1 at 1:00 p.m. A speech the day after the adoption of this controversial pension reform. The Head of State wants to address as many people as possible and in the most peaceful way possible.

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And yet, the choice surprises, even in the corridors of ministries. Le 13 Heures, an elderly audience, often retired; the 13 Hours, much less solemn than the high mass of the 20 Hours. “Bit strange”, confesses an adviser. For the solemnity, it will happen at the Palace, objects the Elysée. And then “It’s very bad to know France”, annoys a close friend of the president. “Very good formula”, believes for his part Fadila Khattabi, president of the social affairs committee at the Assembly, while many women are worried about the consequences of the reform on their pensions.

“At 1 p.m., we talk to mothers, we talk to people who may be having lunch and who will be listening to the President of the Republic. A moment of conviviality, in any case, and of appeasement .”

Fadila Khattabi, President of the Social Affairs Committee

at franceinfo

Not like 8 p.m. when, after dark, in some cities, the garbage cans start to burn. It is the right choice for Benjamin Haddad, the spokesperson for the Renaissance group in the Assembly. “It’s a way of talking to France about the territories, on two channels, so of reaching a wide audience. And then the most important thing is what he’s going to say about the rest and how we can build with the French, after this sequence which has left its mark. How can we put work, full employment at the center of our project.

Neither referendum nor dissolution

Of course, on the opposition side, some dream of seeing Emmanuel Macron step back. This is the case of Laure Lavalette, spokesperson for the National Rally, who, in any case, does not expect much from her intervention. “Unless he arrives saying to us: I heard you, I understood you well, I am going to hold a referendum on this unfair, useless and brutal reform project, and that he wants to dissolve, for example… I think the link, if it ever existed, this link between the French people and Emmanuel Macron has been broken.”

Referendum and dissolution are options already ruled out, leaked those close to the president who saw him this morning. Philippe Juvin, deputy Les Républicains, outlines for him again the track of an enlargement of the majority and of the government. “It seems to me that one of the responsibilities of the President of the Republic is to bring around the table all those who want the country to get out of it. And when I say that, I’m not just talking about my political family, I speak of the left too. I speak of the left which has not been corrupted, to use a strong term, with the Nupes.”

“Working on a solid roadmap”

What is needed to get out of the crisis is in any case a strong gesture, we say behind the scenes at the top of the executive. It will therefore be without dissolving the Assembly, without reshuffling the government, without calling a referendum, according to those who were at the Elysée on Tuesday morning. At least for now. The stage of adoption of the text passed, it will be necessary to move forward. Emmanuel Macron’s entourage has been saying this for days. Dissolve ? “Parliament would still come out of it fragmented”, analyzes a loved one. There is even less interest in that his troops are not ready to return to the campaign. Reshuffle? It’s not “a solution to nothing”, said an adviser. Why then bring about what the failure of censorship prevented? Even with one vote, a majority is a majority, we repeat at the Palace.

The president therefore wants to continue to reform the country, to demonstrate that his five-year term is not dead when he still has four years ahead of him. To his faithful, he asks to work, to “to work on a solid roadmap”, says a pillar of the majority. He gives them a handful of weeks, a way of putting pressure on them. “It’s not his style though”, smiled a participant. For this one, often described as isolated, it is in any case “a way of associating one’s own”, said one of his supporters.