Around Emmanuel Macron, a Refoundation Council without emulation

Alone on stage. In shirt sleeves and clenched fists, Emmanuel Macron boasted, in April from Marseille, the “new method” which was to mark his second – and last – five-year term. With a double promise: to involve all stakeholders in decisions to renew democratic life, and to act more quickly to counter the danger of extremes. “Every minute we lose, we give them another minute”, dramatized the candidate for his re-election. After five months of settling, the Head of State is preparing to launch his own National Council for Refoundation (CNR), Thursday, September 8 in Marcoussis (Essonne), hoping to give substance to this refounded governance. In camera.

Thought like a high mass capable of launching the five-year term, in the presence of Elisabeth Borne and ten ministers, the inaugural session of the CNR will not ultimately be open to the press. Only an introductory statement by Emmanuel Macron, facing the cameras, will start the day, before confidential discussions with around forty union, political and association representatives. According to the Elysee, some guests would have demanded that the discussion not be broadcast on television. “There is nothing hidden, I want the debate to be publicis astonished François Sauvadet, president of the Assembly of the departments of France. But it is up to the President of the Republic to decide on the format of his consultation. »

This “new method”, which wanted to be innovative, is now presented at the Elysée as a banal ” work meeting “. One way to minimize expectations with regard to this poorly identified democratic object, including within the executive. No one in the frontline ministerial offices is able to explain the workings of the CNR. The government spokesman, Olivier Véran, yet in charge of democratic renewal, has long ignored the detailed content, which would have been decided in the cabinet of Alexis Kohler, the secretary general of the Elysée. “We are still waiting for the outlines”, we whispered in the entourage of Pap Ndiaye, the Minister of National Education, two days before the first session. The question of school and equal opportunities will nevertheless be at the center of the discussions.

“What is Larcher going to do tomorrow?” »

Announced in an interview with various titles of the regional daily press on June 3, a little over a month after the presidential election, the CNR is supposed to “gather the nation” around major priorities such as school, health, ecological transition, old age, full employment and reindustrialisation. The idea “mature” during the presidential campaign, according to the Elysée, which reaches out to all “the political, economic, social, associative forces, of the elected representatives of the territories and of the citizens drawn by lot” in this new body, whose acronym is a reference to the National Council of the Resistance.

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