The name is now known. According to information from Europe 1, Emmanuel Macron will receive on Wednesday the parties represented in Parliament at the Maison d’éducation de la Légion d’honneur in Saint-Denis for a symposium called “The meetings of Saint-Denis”. This type of meeting with the fifteen invited political leaders will be repeated and will thus be the first in a series. In a letter addressed to the parties, the Head of State stressed that the objective is to build “together” legislative texts and to open the way, “if necessary”, to referenda.
Convince the opposition
The discussions will focus on “the international situation and its consequences for France”, “the effectiveness of public action”, but also on “the nights of riots that we have experienced” to take decisions aimed at strengthening “the cohesion of the nation”.
By this means, the president wants to convince the oppositions to seize this “extended hand loyally”, because deprived of an absolute majority since his re-election, Emmanuel Macron has so far never succeeded in establishing a semblance of trust with the oppositions. But he hopes that several agreements will emerge in the coming months on key subjects, in particular on immigration and insecurity.
An initial project with former presidents
If the common point between these 15 bosses of the political forces have as a common point their capacity to continue the exchanges in Parliament, according to the Head of State, this selection criterion is very different from the first envisaged by the latter. An initial project aimed to bring together former presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy with former prime ministers such as Jean-Pierre Raffarin or Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve.
Other historical personalities from the right and the left were also initially to be invited, while excluding the rebellious, environmentalists and the National Rally. Brandishing the concept of “republican arch” and bringing together all the major figures of the central bloc, together on stage, was therefore Emmanuel Macron’s primary aspiration. The latter wanted to pose as a unifier, before abandoning the formula for fear of being blamed for a hold-up of former presidents and political figures of the past.