The social mobilization against the pension reform continues, with a tenth day of demonstration this Tuesday in all parts of France. Given the discontent that does not abate, the executive seeks a new strategy. First of all, he tries to resume discussions with the unions.
Next, find a culprit in the ongoing social crisis. At this point, he points to the rebels, believing that they bear part of the responsibility for the overflows observed during the latest demonstrations against the reform, but also, for example, during the events that occurred in Sainte-Soline.
“Dislegitimizing” Institutions
Emmanuel Macron himself sounded the charge. This Monday, during a meeting at the Élysée with the leaders of the presidential majority and government officials, the Head of State pointed to a “true political project led by the LFI that tries to delegitimize the reasonable order, our institutions, the institutional tools” .
The party is “preparing the delegitimization of the Constitutional Council”, launched the head of state, according to the participants in the meeting on BFMTV.
A way for the Executive to position itself as the guarantor of republican order and retake control after the political fiasco of 49.3, by blaming the LFI, designated as responsible for the disorder.
“The pensioners of anger and misery”
Since then, the president’s line has been followed at all levels and levels of the macronie. “We are and will continue to be the bulwark against illegitimate and dangerous violence,” Olivier Véran said Tuesday.
On BFMTV-RMC on Monday, the government spokesman had accused “Mélenchon and his friends” of being “the owners of anger and misery.” During his speech after the Council of Ministers this Tuesday, he pointed out the “serious and deadly” statements by the former Élysée candidate about the clashes in Sainte-Soline.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon cannot ignore that in Sainte-Soline, people had gathered to undermine the authority of the institutions. It does not seem to bother him that the corners of France become the meeting place for all those who want to break”. he said.
In his accusation, Olivier Véran also took aim at La France insoumise in general: “I ask you to respect the commitments you have made to the French and to rise to the occasion.”
Links “between the extreme left and the black blocks”
Same story on the side of the Renaissance deputies in the National Assembly. Prisca Thénevot, elected from Hauts-de-Seine, accused the rebels of “permanently fanning the fire”.
“La France insoumise does not present itself as the first opposition group to Emmanuel Macron, but as the first opposition group to our institutions,” he told franceinfo on Tuesday.
Deputy Sylvain Maillard, first vice president of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly, estimated in the Public Senate that Nupes arouses “extreme tension in society.” “The extreme left has theorized it: he wants violence in society because he believes that with violence he can come to power. The extreme political left, which is in the National Assembly, does exactly the same thing: hysterizing everything, ”he denounced.
According to the parliamentarian, “there will surely be links between the extreme left and the black blocs.”
“Turn a rebellious people into a revolutionary people”
For his part, the president of Modem François Bayrou affirmed on Sunday on Radio J that Jean-Luc Mélenchon maintains “a strategy to destabilize our society by multiplying confrontations.”
“In La France Insoumise, I am convinced that there are people whose political objective is to create a conflict,” former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said on TMC on Monday night.
The founder of the Horizons party, an ally of the presidential majority, believes that the rebels want to “challenge a political system that is ours, a representative and liberal democracy, a market economy or a Europeanization.”
Édouard Philippe thus quoted a statement by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who would have stated in 2012 that “the way to obtain political hegemony is to make a rebellious people pass into a revolutionary people”.
“Institutionalization of violence”
On the right too, criticism of LFI remains harsh. A guest of RTL on Tuesday, the president of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, estimated that “some are adding oil to this ember”, citing “the extreme left and Mr. Mélenchon”.
“Emmanuel Macron has made blunders, but I don’t put them on the same level as the institutionalization of violence justified by Mr. Mélenchon,” he added.
In the seats of the National Assembly, after the confrontations on the sidelines of the mobilizations against the pension reform, Éric Ciotti accused the LFI on Tuesday “of instrumentalizing the social conflict for extremist purposes.”
The Rebels Respond
A rain of accusations and criticisms that do not leave the rebels indifferent. As soon as Emmanuel Macron spoke, Mathilde Panot responded to the head of state, blaming him for the current tensions. For her, he “is playing an extremely dangerous game with democracy.”
“It’s not our fault if you’re only attached to 49.3, to the baton and to the worst of our institutions,” this is how the group’s leader in the Assembly responded on BFMTV-RMC, denouncing a “grotesque deviation.” “We delegitimize our institutions so much that we suggest they use them: referendum, dissolution.”
“Mr. 49.3, what delegitimizes the institutions is to use them to impose a law rejected by more than 70% of the French and all employee union organizations,” Deputy Manuel Bompard also tweeted.
Mélenchon calls actions “pacifist”
He also answers about “conflictualization”. “The conflict also raises awareness, allows you to think about things,” defends the deputy from Val-de-Marne.
On the sidelines of the Parisian procession on Tuesday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon said he hoped “that this demonstration (…) will be carried out in cold blood”, calling for “peaceful actions” after the excesses observed on March 23.
He also accused the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, of having organized a “trap” in Sainte-Soline this weekend, after the clashes that marked the protests against the construction of mega-basins.
Source: BFM TV
