Jean-Michel Blanquer, Jean-Pierre Chevènement and Jean-Pierre Raffarin, respectively Minister of National Education of Emmanuel Macron, figure of the sovereignist left and former Prime Minister of Jacques Chirac, unite to call to gather behind the president the Republic this Sunday, April 24, during the second round of the presidential election, against Marine Le Pen. The objective: “To act on a refoundation around a central and republican arc that is deeply renewed and robust enough to resist pressure from the extremes”.
The text of the tribune: “Long live the Republic, long live the homeland! »
“The Nation, the fatherland, France, Marine Le Pen does not have the monopoly, and the return of the tragedy that marks our time also tells us of the attachment of our fellow citizens to the country, its history and its values. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia reminds us: if nationalism is war, the Nation is Resistance. And this should lead us not to fatalism or nihilism, but to the spirit of progress and construction that is the hallmark of our country. The History of France is made up of struggles against renunciation, in the service of a lofty idea of the human person and of our country.
In the current context, it is first and foremost as patriots, as lovers of France, that we must approach the second round of the presidential election, aware of the regressive temptations that await our country and inhabited by the imperious need to preserve the values that make us what we are: freedom, equality, fraternity, secularism. It is also as Europeans, because we are convinced that France will strengthen its economic and strategic sovereignty if Europe is powerful in this 21st century which is advancing. We Europeans are bound by a common destiny.
Because French, we cannot agree to go back on this principle which wants the Republic to recognize all its children as its own, whatever their family, social or geographical origin. Because Republicans, we refuse to betray our own Constitution, which is the fruit of a certain idea that in this country we have of democracy.
Because fiercely Republicans, deeply European, resolutely French, we call today to unite behind the President of the Republic, not only to beat the far right, but also to carry a new ambition for our country. Because we cannot bring ourselves to eternally brandish a republican front which fractures a little more every five years. What we want, what we must do, is to bring its principles and values back into the first 21st century.
It starts at school, which must continue to bring to life the Republican promise of equal opportunity, at the heart of our social contract. Never has so much been done for equal opportunities as under this five-year term, from the duplication of classes in a priority education network to the development of educational cities and boarding schools of excellence, including free breakfasts and “learning holidays”, and we must always go further, always stronger. The coming five-year term will also have to be that of the teachers, because beyond the revaluations already begun which must be continued, it is appropriate to give them all the recognition they deserve from society, these hussars who were once moreover our heroes, from Samuel Paty to all those who were on the front line in the health crisis.
Democracy, freedom of expression, secularism, each passing day reminds us that our most precious possessions are also the most fragile. In the face of resurgent imperialism, in the face of separatism of all kinds, in the face of the denial of democracy and the withdrawal into oneself that is gaining our youth itself, we must transmit this heritage to our children. We have to explain to them that the republican project is more relevant than ever to respond to the innumerable challenges that are before us, starting with the ecological question, which will undoubtedly be the fight of the century.
And so that not one of our fellow citizens feels excluded from this new French project that we are carrying, everyone must be able to participate in the national momentum. It is a new breath, comparable to that which animated all the living forces of the Nation after the Second World War, that we must find. And for this to continue the efforts undertaken for the reindustrialization of the country, by projecting ourselves collectively towards France 2030.
We can and must become a strong industrial nation again, alongside the world leaders in the ecological transition: electric cars, zero-carbon planes, solar panels, wind turbines, biomedicine, green hydrogen, ambition maritime, all of this we can do in France and in Europe, if we give ourselves the means. It is this great engaging and exciting plan that we must invent for our country and bring to the eyes of the world, faithful to our universalist tradition which wants that when France encounters an idea, together they go around the world…
It is at this price that we will restore to our fellow citizens the pride of being what they are, French, that is to say convinced that a better world is possible, there, at hand. It is at this price that we will succeed in what can bring us together: giving each person control of their individual destiny and all of us control of our collective destiny. It is at this price that we will lower the social temperature and that we will reconnect with a peaceful life and democratic practices.
The period we are going through is historic. 2017 saw the collapse of the major parties that had organized our political life for years. 2022 must now act on a refoundation around a central and republican arc that is deeply renewed and robust enough to resist pressure from the extremes. Faced with the populist national project of the National Rally, it is our duty, Republicans on both shores, to unite behind the President of the Republic, and beyond that, to rebuild the social and republican pact that binds us and ensures that we share this common destiny, this extraordinary destiny that we call France. »