Emmanuel Macron has no culture of excuse

We talk again with Nicolas Beytout about the televised intervention of Emmanuel Macron.

And four since the start of the epidemic, but this time, without lyricism, without great flights. Of course, when there is only good news to announce, no need to delay. And for once, it was he (and not his Prime Minister, always more reserved on deconfinement) who unveiled them, this good news. So beware, there have been some arrangements with reality: France's performance in the fight against the Coronavirus has been greatly overestimated by the Head of State, and the hard containment strategy has made France the country that has plunged the economic recession the most. The call to resume and accelerate the return to work was therefore absolutely essential. But Emmanuel Macron's general state of mind is: reinventing oneself, yes. But apologize, no!

Reinventing yourself: he already said it in mid-April.

Without really specifying what it meant. This time, we still don't have the details, but we understand that for him, to reinvent himself is to govern differently. After the Yellow Vests, the head of state had taken over with the Great Debate, but his management style had not changed in the end: from top to bottom. This time, he promises to associate more widely with the decision, to consult all summer, to trust the ground.

But without apologizing?

Exactly, and it's striking. No excuses for his political choices in the first part of the quinquennium, for lowering taxes, for labor market reforms. No excuse in the face of those who noisily push him to change policy: no, he does not renounce saying that it will be necessary to work more to rebuild, more to conquer a little more sovereignty. No excuse, that is to say, no change of political axis. A series of additions, of course (ecology, relocations "when it is justified", the hospital, too, obviously). But no denial. And of course, this firmness over the first three years of the quinquennium will allow him when the time comes (in 2022) to claim that part of the balance sheet that was wiped out by the epidemic.

Then there is the call to republican order.

Yes, and there either, no excuse, but on the contrary, a great firmness in supporting the police and the gendarmes (without any consideration, contrary to what the police had heard from their minister responsible, Christophe Castaner has been publicly disowned). In any case, welcome firmness to refuse to question the history of France, to erase the troublesome periods, to give in to the "hateful or false rewriting of the past". Emmanuel Macron, promises that he will specify in July what will be this course for the next two years, but we can already see that on the economy, on order, on decentralization, he will not leave space to the right . The 2022 campaign really started this Sunday evening at 8 p.m.