The slap inflicted on Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday in the Drôme is a "serious" act, but which is "not representative" of the French or even of the "anger" of some of them, said Wednesday the door - speech of the government Gabriel Attal.

"We must obviously not trivialize" this "act of violence" against the Head of State, "because it is serious, because any form of violence is serious, and it is also serious when it affects a person. representative, a depositary of public authority, whether it is a mayor ", a" deputy ", a" civil servant "or the president, underlined Gabriel Attal on Europe 1.

With this slap "there is an attack on the sacredness of the function to which we are all attached" and "we are all as French assaulted, somewhere humiliated", he added.

However, he considered that it was "an isolated fact, because we must not give the feeling that what was done by this man is representative of the society or of the French population, including d 'a form of anger on the part of a part of the French'.

"We must learn the lessons for all of us"

If there are "French worried, who doubt, who are angry", they "know how to express this in the context of the debate and in the context of the vote", he argued. For the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, “it is a serious gesture against a person, (…) it is a serious gesture against the office of President of the Republic and it is a serious gesture against the French nation as a whole ”, and this“ reflects a long deterioration of the public debate ”.

"We must learn the lessons for all of us, and in particular for political leaders, of the need to weigh every word," he said on BFMTV and RMC: "let's get together (...), we all have a responsibility, whatever the functions we hold (…), to pull the debate upwards ”.

For the boss of LREM deputies Christophe Castaner, "the best answer to that is not to change, not to stop, not to dramatize the situation, but without neglecting the force and symbolic violence of the gesture".

Miscellaneous

Who is Damien T., the aggressor of the President of the Republic?

Television

Damien T. was filmed by "Quotidien" shortly before his slap in the face to Emmanuel Macron

  • Slap

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Gabriel Attal