As mayor of Grigny (Essonne), Philippe Rio will not participate in the “big political initiative” organized by Emmanuel Macron this Wednesday at 3:00 p.m., reserved for the leaders of the parties represented in Parliament. However, the communist councilor, elected best mayor in the world in 2021, wanted to alert the President of the Republic at the BFMTV-RMC microphone.
If they had invited him, he would have told him “the same thing we have been telling him since 2017”: certainly “in popular cities” like “throughout the country, there are notable forces, a youth that does not ask only to fully live the Republic”, but rather that it is “absent in many areas,” he points out, incidentally advancing a “need for equality in the country.”
For this reason, Philippe Rio considers that “school today accelerates inequalities”. The elect advances so that in his city 46% of children leave the school system without a degree “. And to insist:
“The Republican promise cannot exist when there are such important fractures.”
“Cohesion”
The PCF mayor then evokes the theme of “nation cohesion”, which Emmanuel Macron and his guests will have to address during their meeting. For him, we must put poverty at the center of this debate. “The more poverty there is, the more France will fracture,” he said.
This problem is particularly present in his city, considered the poorest in France by the Observatory of Inequalities. “We have a nutrition and public health problem,” says Philippe Rio, specifying that despite the introduction of a one-euro meal in his city’s canteen – and sometimes “even a little less” according to households – it is still “still too expensive” for some families.
In such a situation, what do children eat at home? asks Apoline de Malherbe on BFMTV-RMC. “Bread, for example, or French fries,” the councilor replies.
As for “authority”, a word that has appeared frequently in the mouth of the Head of State in recent days, “it must be benevolent and just”, Judge Philippe Rio, who attacks those who “skip[ent] sure [leur] chair like [des] goat[s] saying ‘we need authority'”. Denouncing “a political discourse that seeks to fragment”, he insists: “Our country will only be strong if the youth of our neighborhoods fully participate in its future”.
Source: BFM TV
