• Tweeter
  • republish

President Macron in Paris on October 29, 2019. Ian Langsdon / Pool via REUTERS

It is a choice that surprises even in the ranks of the majority. Immigration, communitarianism, sailing: Emmanuel Macron explained this Thursday, October 31 in the columns of the weekly magazine Current Values .

The interview , granted by the president a few days ago, during his trip to Mayotte and Reunion, after the controversies over the veil and the community lists but before the attack on Bayonne, arouses excitement.

Nothing new on the bottom. Despite 12 pages of interview, Emmanuel Macron returns on ideas he has already detailed: willingness to fight against communitarianism, avoiding the trap " communautarisme = islam "; the need to better combat illegal immigration by reducing the time taken to investigate cases.

On the question of the veil, sensitive for ten days, Emmanuel Macron speaks of a failure of the French model, but insists: the problem is not " the mother who wears a veil ", but " the children who are out of school ".

The choice to speak to a newspaper ranked far right

The outcry actually comes from the president's decision to grant an interview to a well-known right-wing newspaper. In his head last week: " The veil or France ". In 2015, the newspaper was sentenced for inciting racial hatred for a file on the Roma community.

" What matters in this case is not the substance of the interview, since there is absolutely nothing, it is the choice to speak to an extreme right newspaper. When he does this, the President of the Republic knows very well what he is doing, so it is a political signal he sends, "said Ian Brossat, spokesman for the French Communist Party.

Front-end criticism from the left (PCF, PS, etc.), but also discomfort among the majority; Macronist deputies from the left have not dropped their phone since the announcement of the interview, and few are elected LaREM to defend the choice of the president.

" It may not be the first choice I would have made, but I was convinced by what I read, " says Ludovic Mendes. " The president is meant to dialogue with all citizens, including those who do not share the beliefs that are ours, " slice the spokesman of the government, which claims a necessary exercise of pedagogy of the Head of State .

A strategy for talking to voters about rights

For Bruno Cautrès, a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Center for Political Research Sciences Po (Cevipof), the choice of Emmanuel Macron is thoughtful and owes nothing to chance at five months of municipal and two years and a half of the presidential election.

" On economic issues, Emmanuel Macron has already proven his ability to fetch center-right voters. By speaking to Actual Values, he comes to cover another dimension of the right-wing ideological spectrum. One way to consolidate the right-wing electoral base that has clearly voted for him in the European elections, "said the political scientist.

" It is true that he is going on our field, but the difference will be made on his ability or not to make decisions ", reassures the MP LR Julien Aubert, which recalls that two years ago, the majority LaREM refused any revision of State Medical Aid.

The only party to be quoted, however, by the head of state in the interview: the National Rally of Marine Le Pen. One way, again, to designate the real opponent.

► To read also: Macron talks about immigration, communitarianism and sailing in current values