Gérard Larcher, the president of the Senate, refuses to participate

It has been announced, has not yet been launched, but is already shunned. In an interview with several regional dailiesbroadcast on the evening of June 3, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, had announced that he wanted to bring together after the legislative elections a “National Refoundation Council” (CNR) with the “political, economic, social, associative forces”. The body supposed to bring together elected officials, actors in the field, civil society must be inaugurated on September 8, Emmanuel Macron announced after the ceremony of 78^e anniversary of the liberation of Bormes-les-Mimosas, August 19.

But after the decision of the party Les Républicains (LR), the National Rally (RN) and La France insoumise (LFI) to boycott the body, Gérard Larcher, President of the Senate and third figure of the State, according to the protocol of the V^e Republicwrote to the President of the Republic to tell him that he too would not participate in the CNR, we learned on Monday, August 29, from a source close to President LR of the Senate, confirming information from the Figaro.

“I think that this body cannot achieve the renovation of the democracy to which you aspire”asserts Mr. Larcher in this letter to the Head of State, excerpts of which are published by Le Figaro. For the President of the Senate “the mechanisms of participatory democracy can contribute to enlightening national representation, but they can in no way replace it”. “Wanting to bring together in the same body parliamentarians, the only ones constitutionally empowered to pass the law and control the executive, and representatives of civil society (…) can only lead to a confusion of roles.he adds.

And “the risk of confusion that the National Council for Refoundation conceals and the uncertainties that remain about its true role” are perceived “as a form of circumvention of Parliament, that is to say of national representation”he adds.

Wave of refusal

Government spokesman Olivier Véran explained in July that this CNR aimed to “share diagnoses nationwide on major issues”in particular health, education, loss of autonomy, and that it would associate “leaders of political parties, leaders of parliamentary groups, representatives of associations of elected representatives of the territories, representatives of intermediary bodies, unions in partnership with the Economic, Social and Environmental Council”.

On August 26, La France insoumise announced that it would not participate. In July, Bruno Retailleau, the boss of the Les Républicains senators, and Olivier Marleix, the president of the LR deputies, declined the invitation. Before them, in June, in Agde, Marine Le Pen had already announced that she did not intend to participate, a refusal confirmed at the end of July by Laure Lavalette, spokesperson for the National Rally.

Read also: Emmanuel Macron announces that he wants to convene a “National Council for Refoundation” after the legislative elections

The World with AFP