[ad_1]
The French president meets 600 mayors in a Normandy village. With a national debate wants to channel the displeasure in the population. The danger exists that yellow jackets do not participate in it.
The New Year's speech was one of the few appearances of the French president in recent weeks. With the national debate, he hopes to find a way out of the crisis. (Image: Michel Euler / EPO)
French President Emmanuel Macron announced it "Great national debate" open. He went to Grand Bourgtheroulde, a small rural community in Normandy with 3700 inhabitants. In a sports complex met Tuesday afternoon with 600 mayors of the region together. The police had raised a large security device to keep the demonstrators away. However, some "yellow jackets" gathered in the village to protest before the President arrived. The mood seemed peaceful.
In the period before the meeting, many mayors had expressed skepticism and some had canceled their participation. A main objection was that with so many people in the hall an exchange is almost impossible. The question was whether the president really was in the middle of a debate, or simply an advertising campaign, whether he was willing to listen or just keep his high altar.
"Great national debate" in France – Bourgtheroulde in a state of emergency
Last Sunday, Macron had addressed a letter to the "French Dear". He urged his compatriots to join the national exchange in the next two months to create a new "treaty for the nation".
The debate that is about to begin, according to the motto of Macron, is to focus on four main issues that the government considers particularly urgent, or because they were repeatedly mentioned in the protest "Gilets-jaunes": taxes, the organization of the state and public institutions, the energy transition, democracy and civil rights. The president himself formulates 34 questions in his five-page letter, for example on the rights of the referendum, on the decentralization of the state or on the restriction of immigration.
No prohibition, but clear boundaries
The debates will be transformed according to Macron's default on four main issues that are considered particularly urgent by the government or because they have been repeatedly mentioned in the context of the Gilets-jaunes protests: taxes, state organization and public institutions, energy transition, democracy and civil rights. The president himself formulates 34 questions in his five-page letter, including possible referendum rights, decentralization of the state or the restriction of immigration.
The president, however, goes on to say that there are no forbidden questions for him. His fear that suddenly the bases of the French Republic or his position are under discussion, but in the letter is clear. The national debate is neither a referendum nor an election, writes Macron. Also, you will not be back to the decisions that have already been made. In this way, the president refers in particular to the obligation to reintroduce the property tax.
The preparation of the debate did not go as planned. After the start date was postponed for a month, last week the chairman of the commission responsible for the organization withdrew his salary for a controversy. The debate will be led by the mayors of 35,416 municipalities in France – a group of politicians who kept Macron visibly distracted during his first year and a half in office.
The French president is looking for a way out of a crisis that has held the country under control for over two months, severely restricting Macron's ability to act. Not only has he been whistled in public appearances, but his government's reform program has also stopped. The ten billion measures announced in December to calm the situation – an increase in the minimum wage, for example, or the tax exemption for salary components for overtime work – have not left the "gilet jaunes" outside the sails. After a vacation crash, the movement is gaining popularity again. Although popular support has declined, according to surveys it is still around 60 percent.
Dissatisfaction and distrust
The dissatisfaction, which obviously many French people carry around, has proved in recent weeks not only on the street, but also in the so-called complaint books ("cahiers de doléances"). Several thousand mayors had these in their town halls, a historical allusion to pre-revolutionary France. In 1789, the nobility, the clergy and the third state expressed their disappointment only in these notebooks and formulated proposals for reforms for the General States to be subjugated to the king.
Since the beginning of December, several thousand items have gathered across the country. The newspaper "Le Figaro" quotes from a first synthesis of the union of the mayors of rural communities, which started the denunciation books. As a result, demands for social and fiscal justice are the most common. The accusation that Macron favors the rich in the country, while the cost of living for a bourgeois family is no longer acceptable, occurs in more contexts again and again.
Macron writes in his letter that he hopes the debate will turn rage into solutions. This raises the crucial question if even those who have been demonstrating for weeks and sometimes disrupting public order will participate in the process. In social networks, the Jaunes waistcoat asks not to fall into the president's "tarnish tactics".
In addition, the recent results of a survey that has been conducted regularly in France since 2009 show a level of distrust of political institutions in the country that has never been reached before. According to this, 85% of respondents believe that policy makers are not interested in what concerns citizens. Macron wants to meet this feeling when he writes that he has a strong desire to draw lessons from the debate. Obviously, many French people are wondering if the consequences will be drawn from the results.
Cooperation: awy.
[ad_2]
Source link
