In office for almost two months, Prime Minister Michel Barnier gave some clues about the policy he wants to pursue in the coming weeks, during an interview with Le Parisien.
Matignon’s tenant wants to present in December “an action plan that will be a continuation of the general policy discourse” and that should allow “doing sustainable things for the country.”
To do this, he relies on local elected officials who will speak to him “frankly” and convey the requests of the French to guide him. The main idea would be “to change the country with a five-year reform plan,” he considers, describing himself as “quite a planner.”
“I want to use everything I have learned over the last forty years to find solutions,” continues the man who will publish a book in January 2025 listing the 120 lessons from his “public or private life extracted from moments.”
Still stuck on budget
Your mantra? “Perseverance, change, breakup. You will see it in the project that I will present in a few weeks (…) I am not here to defensively manage a budget project.”
Because the Barnier government is currently deadlocked on the budget issue, while the specter of a 49.3 for its approval looms over them, with the risk of being faced with a motion of no confidence.
“We have not yet found the right center of gravity for the budget,” admits the Prime Minister.
“Not a day goes by without hearing a good idea” about “simplification, decentralization, about how to make taxes more efficient” while maintaining “the achievements of Emmanuel Macron’s seven years of “greater attractiveness for the country,” he summarizes.
Find the right idea through the 2019 complaint notebooks
Even so, Savoy hopes to reform once this obstacle is overcome. If he thinks he doesn’t have “time to pass important laws,” he wants to tackle “concrete projects,” such as an industrial savings book or a one-time social subsidy, the newspaper reports.
Two objectives also raised are the “inflection” of public policies and the desire to “territorialize.”
To “propose something strong enough” at the beginning of December, at the end of two ministerial seminars in which he wants to hear the proposals of members of the Government, Michel Barnier plans to consult the list of complaints again.
Launched by Emmanuel Macron but then forgotten, they were occupied by the French in 2019 in response to the yellow vest crisis. Matignon’s teams now consult them to find ideas that they can “discuss”, rather than impose.
“I know that I am above my condition” with a plan that points to 2029, the Prime Minister smiles, however, aware that planning a political calendar beyond the 2027 presidential elections presents risks.
Source: BFM TV
