Arthur de Laborde with AFP / Photo credits: AURELIEN MORISSARD / POOL / AFP
“Those who are absent are always wrong”: Emmanuel Macron meets on Friday the party leaders who responded to the second “Saint-Denis meetings” with the firm intention of showing the oppositions who declined the invitation that they missed the boat .
Meetings to “create consensus”
As on August 30, this very Macronist exercise intended to “create consensus” in a fractured country will be held at the House of Education of the Legion of Honor, a stone’s throw from the basilica where the kings of France rest, at the gates of Paris. The meeting takes place at 9:15 a.m., with the situation in Gaza and Ukraine, the extension of the referendum to social issues, decentralization and possible constitutional reforms on the status of Corsica and New Caledonia on the menu.
A second edition in small groups
If all the party leaders had made the trip for the first edition – and for a meeting at the Élysée after the Hamas attack against Israel -, Éric Ciotti (Les Républicains), Olivier Faure (Socialist Party) and Manuel Bompard ( La France Insoumise) have opted this time for the empty chair policy.
On the opposition side, only Marine Tondelier (EELV), Fabien Roussel (Communist Party), Jordan Bardella (National Rally), Hervé Marseille (UDI) and Guillaume Lacroix (PRG) agreed to honor the presidential meeting.
The Republicans will nevertheless be represented by a major player, the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher, invited in the same capacity as the President of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet. The head of state will also be able to count on his allies, Stéphane Séjourné (Renaissance), François Bayrou (MoDem), Édouard Philippe (Horizons), Laurent Hénart (Radical Party).
“A major political mistake”, judges Emmanuel Macron
The second edition therefore promises to be much less successful for the President of the Republic, who, during his state visit to Switzerland, appeared furious with the party leaders who decided to boycott it. “It’s a major political mistake, it’s their responsibility but no pretext justifies it,” he proclaimed.
And it is above all the empty chair of Éric Ciotti which exasperates Emmanuel Macron at a time when his government is seeking the votes of right-wing deputies to vote on its text on immigration. The head of the Republicans is considered unworthy by the head of state for having cited his absence during last Sunday’s march against anti-Semitism, hence his response on BFMTV: “For me, what is unworthy is the absence of the President at this moment which should have been a great moment of national unity”, launched Éric Ciotti.
Emmanuel Macron, however, seemed to have built the Saint-Denis agenda with the idea of charming the right, in particular with the possible extension of the scope of the referendum to social issues such as immigration. A recurring request from Eric Ciotti.