2023-11-10 10:53:38
Government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, in Paris, October 9, 2023. AGNES DHERBEYS / MYOP POUR “LE MONDE”
Olivier Véran had no choice but to improvise. This Tuesday, November 7, during the government questions session at the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, whispered in the ear of the government spokesperson: “It’s you who takes it. » The minister then has ten seconds left before responding to the National Rally (RN) deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy, who has just denounced “the odious hydra of hatred of Jews”. The latter accuses the government of” indifference “ and of “cowardice” faced with the outbreak on French soil of anti-Semitism exacerbated by the war between Israel and Hamas, including “the essential, cardinal source is, he saidIslamism ».
As a defense, Olivier Véran chooses attack. “You are the party of flame!” »he says to the far-right elected official, recalling that, forty-eight hours earlier, the president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, refused to qualify Jean-Marie Le Pen as anti-Semitic despite multiple sentences imposed on the former party leader. “You are not serving the cause you claim to defend,” shouts Olivier Véran while, on the benches of the Hemicycle, Marine Le Pen bites her lips.
“Total improvisation! I let my guts speak”confided the minister during a meeting with The MondeThursday November 9. « Ils [le RN] try to redeem our moral virginity but we cannot redeem our conscience by walking alongside those we have hated”he whispers, revolted by the expected presence of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen at the “great civic march” against anti-Semitism, organized on Sunday November 12 at the initiative of Yaël Braun-Pivet, president (Renaissance) of the National Assembly, and Gérard Larcher, president (Les Républicains) of the Senate.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Jordan Bardella denies the anti-Semitism of Jean-Marie Le Pen and redemonizes the National Rally
“The National Rally has no place at this demonstration”, the spokesperson had already said on Monday during the report of the Council of Ministers. An opprobrium thrown at the party which thwarted the much-hoped-for national unity. “It’s a real heartbreak. But we cannot sacrifice republican values on the altar of this unity. he judges.
« Ringardise »
Part of his own camp is offended. In Bercy, in the entourage of the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, we deplore reflexes “from another time”. The former member of the Socialist Party would have fallen into the trap set by the RN, allowing the far-right party to present itself as a victim of the Parisian elites and the “right thinking”. “Olivier Véran? He’s a lone rider.”we sigh in those around Emmanuel Macron, where the minister is criticized for “lack of subtlety”. On May 30, the head of state sharply reframed Elisabeth Borne when she recalled, on Radio J, that the RN was “Pétain’s heir”. “The fight against the extreme right no longer involves moral arguments”had announced the tenant of the Elysée, during the council of ministers, castigating “words from the 1990s that no longer work”.
You have 65% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#National #Rally #Olivier #Vérans #solitary #offensive