In the event of a “huge crisis”, the Head of State can always rely on the voters: Emmanuel Macron, in the midst of social anger against his pension reform, answered questions from readers of Conk, assuring of his frustration when things do not go “fast enough”. The president’s speech has been rare since the presentation, on January 10, of the flagship project of his second five-year term. But he agreed to speak for the 75th anniversary of the famous dog, an interview conducted on February 20 with young readers and broadcast on Wednesday.
“Do not depend on each other’s parties”
His words have a particular resonance in the flammable situation that the country has been experiencing since the outbreak, on March 16, of 49.3 to have the pension reform adopted. “Can you leave your post in full term, and what would happen if you left?” Asks Mélina, a fourth-grade student, during a meeting at the Elysée. “If you leave it, it means that there may be a huge crisis and you are prevented”, answers Emmanuel Macron. “At that point, you hand over your mandate to the French, and the people vote again.”
For the time being, the Head of State does not envisage either a referendum on pensions or the dissolution of the National Assembly and a resignation seems even more unlikely. Pressed to give advice to whoever would like to become president, Emmanuel Macron insists: “The best way to get there is to get your own idea of things and not to depend on parties from each other”. Emmanuel Macron does not have an absolute majority in the National Assembly. And the pension reform crystallizes the discontent around him. What does he like in his “job”? “The exchange, the meeting, trying to understand what works and does not work in the major choices that I implement”.
His detractors highlight his inflexibility on pensions, accusing him of “playing the rot” of the situation. Either “you were able to provide solutions” and it is “satisfactory”, launches Emmanuel Macron. “Either it’s not, and it’s the moments that touch you too, that are frustrating because you see things aren’t moving fast enough.” In the relationship between a president and the French, there can be “anger”, “joy”, “but there is no indifference”, he still sketches.
Pif, relaunched in 2020 after two resurrections
Pif, emblematic character of the youth press, was created in 1948 by the Spanish cartoonist José Cabrero Arnal for the communist daily L’Humanité. The magazine Pif Gadget was founded in 1969, under the aegis of the Communist Party, before disappearing in 1993. After two first resurrections, it was relaunched in 2020, under the name of Pif, with at its head the former minister of Nicolas Sarkozy, Frédéric Lefebvre.