Mshow that she is able to hold the helm of the ship in the middle of a storm. This was the objective of Valérie Pécresse, who officially unveiled her presidential project on Monday March 14 at the Hôtel de l’Industrie in Paris on Monday. Under the watchful eye of Frédéric Lemoine, responsible for developing the program, his campaign manager Patrick Stefanini and the four musketeers – Xavier Bertrand, Michel Barnier, Philippe Juvin and Éric Ciotti – the Republican candidate highlighted the key measures of its “project of rupture”, based on four commitments: the power of France, the return of authority, sustainable prosperity and the social pact. And hammered out his mantra: “rebuild” the country, damaged by Emmanuel Macron.
“France must be powerful in and with Europe,” she declared in the preamble, defending a “patriotic and European” line. While Vladimir Putin is stepping up his bombardments in Ukraine, Valérie Pécresse has promised to strengthen our defense by investing 108 billion euros in additional resources by 2030, an effort comparable to that which was announced a few days ago by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The budget devoted to our defense will be 65 billion euros in 2031, promised the candidate, against 41 billion euros today. On the other hand, Pécresse is still opposed to the accession of other countries, including Ukraine, to the European Union, judging that the priority must be to consolidate the links between the 27.
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While gasoline prices are soaring, the candidate for the presidential election assured that she would guarantee our energy sovereignty by relaunching the nuclear sector: construction of six new EPRs, relaunch of a reactor project of 4and generation and support for the development of small modular reactors. In this highly symbolic place, which was one of the main centers of innovation in Paris in the 19thand century, Valérie Pécresse reaffirmed her ambition to develop industrial sectors and sectoral research by creating a Ministry of Industry, Energy and Innovation.
Work more, spend less
If she reaches the supreme office in nearly a month, the Republican candidate will create a large research agency, which must be the French equivalent of the American Darpa (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). “A High Council for Economic and Digital Sovereignty will control investments and projects, and prevent the takeover of our strategic companies,” she explained. Valérie Pécresse promises to get out of our “submission” to Gafam by developing a sovereign cloud by 2030.
Moreover, in terms of security, the candidate of “doing” assured that it would be “zero impunity” under her mandate. “Any offense must receive a certain, rapid and executed sanction”, she estimated, detailing her main measures: emergency plan for justice with a 50% increase over five years in the means of the courts, 16,000 recruitments to reduce trial times, introduction of minimum sentences for repeat offenders, one year in prison for any attack on a person holding public authority and creation of 20,000 additional prison places. In order to effectively regain control of our borders, Valérie Pécresse recalled that she would introduce quotas for the reception of foreigners by country and by immigration category, and that France would refuse all visas from countries which refuse to recapture their illegals.
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Paraphrasing the famous formula of Nicolas Sarkozy, the Republican candidate warned that we would have to work more, spend better and less public money. It will endeavor to follow a path of “sustainable growth”, which should allow it to fulfill three objectives: full employment, improvement of purchasing power and the realization of the ecological transition. The candidate notably promises to increase net salaries below 2,800 euros by 10% by reducing employees’ social security contributions, to exempt the conversion of RTT into salary from tax and to create a “young active income” of 670 euros for 18- 25 years old who are training in a job in tension. Valérie Pécresse has promised to finally achieve the “shock of simplification of standards”, which will result in particular in the reduction of all administrative procedure times by two and the reduction of production taxes on companies.
A few hours before the first television show with the eight main candidates for the presidential election, Valérie Pécresse finally promised to carry out all the structural reforms that Emmanuel Macron did not do: pension reform, health insurance reform, unemployment, reform of the RSA, reform of the State and decentralization, digitization of the public sphere and the elimination of all duplicates. And all this, she assured, by making twice as many savings (84 billion euros) as expenses (42 billion). What to try to (re) install the match with the President of the Republic, whose program must be unveiled at the end of the week.