A combative Macron tries to allay concerns about second term drift, #Combative #Macron #Seeks #Drift #Worries #SecondTerm #Drift OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
PARIS—In His First television interview since his re-election, France’s President Emmanuel Macron took a belligerent tone on Thursday in an attempt to reassure the French that he was firmly in the driver’s seat to tackle challenges ranging from inflation to climate change.
After a shaky start to his second term, which had fueled concerns that listlessness was gripping the presidency, Mr Macron rejected the idea that the country is heading for five years of ‘immobilism’ after losing its absolute majority in the parliament last month. House of Commons of Parliament.
“Not at all,” he said, before smiling at the two journalists from the television channels TF1 and France 2 who interviewed him on the lawn of the Élysée Palace, adding: “You have not heard what I have said for the past hour!”
Looking energetic, Mr Macron had said a lot – about French military spending and rising inflation in the context of the war in Ukraine, about the need to tackle climate change as France struggles to cope with wildfires and a blistering heat waveand on his vow to reform the French labor market and pension system.
“I want the country to move forward,” Macron said in the Bastille Day interview. “I will do everything I can to find intelligent compromises in that direction.”
Since taking office in 2017, Mr Macron had broken with the widely perceived presidential tradition of Bastille Day television interviews, giving one earlier, in 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
His decision to return to tradition on Thursday suggested he was eager to bolster support and give France a sense of direction that has been lacking in recent months.
A survey published this week found by the Ifop polling institute that his approval rating, which has declined since his election, was 37 percent, his lowest since the start of the pandemic.
Macron convincingly defeated Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, to win a second term in April, but a poor performance by his party and its centre-right allies in the parliamentary elections, attributed in part by some analysts to his lack of involvement in the campaign. , raised questions about his ability to rule.
Mr Macron added that he was adrift when he appointed a new prime minister and government too late to re-tweak his cabinet earlier this month, seeking a fresh start that seemed to elude him as a series of international summits and diplomatic overtures to stop fighting in Ukraine kept him away from France.
Macron said on Thursday he was confident his government could find a compromise and pass legislation, arguing that only a “baroque combination” of parties “completely opposed to each other” – a left-wing coalition, Ms Le Pen’s far-right party and mainstream conservatives – could gather enough votes to thwart him.
But that’s exactly what happened this week, when opposition lawmakers rejected a proposal giving the government the opportunity to reinstate Covid-19 health passes at the French borders.
The bill isn’t final — it goes to the Senate and can still be amended — but the developments have been a worrying setback for the government and an ominous sign as it hopes to pass a bill on purchasing power in the summer.
Mr Macron’s interview came after a military parade on Bastille Day in Paris that began with the presentation of the flags of host countries, most of Eastern European allies such as Estonia, Poland and Romania, and was followed by troops representing French troops currently stationed in NATO territory. eastern flank.
“This war will last, but France will always be able to help Ukraine,” Macron said, accusing Russia of using energy as a weapon and saying there was a “probable risk” that the country would flow gas to Europe. cut off.
“It’s a very difficult scenario and we have to prepare for it,” he added, though noting that France, which gets about 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, was not as dependent on Russian gas as some of its neighbors.
Mr Macron warned that the economic impact of the war would worsen in the autumn and winter, and said the government would prepare plans to conserve energy.
But he also said his reformist zeal was intact, announcing that the government would work in the fall to reform France’s unemployment system to address labor shortages. He also reiterated his vow to gradually raise the statutory retirement age to 65 from 2023.
Opponents have accused Mr Macron of glorifying the virtues of compromise without making sense of it himself – especially on the left, where his pro-business agenda, which would not impose higher taxes on the rich, has been widely rejected and is seen as more compatible with the right.
“His outstretched hand does not extend to us,” said Olivier Faure, the head of the Socialist Party, on Twitter†