Like a clamor in the distance. Surrounded by local elected officials, Emmanuel Macron advances towards the artificial lake of Serre-Ponçon, in the Hautes-Alpes. The State and the communities at the bedside of one of the symbols of the drought, the image is neat. Several hundred meters away, we just hear horns and indistinct cries of demonstrators against the pension reform. “Emmanuel Macron leader of the bosses, we don’t want you here”, they sing. Near the water reservoir, the microphones stretch. “There are 200 demonstrators but does that mean that the Republic must stop? »pretends to wonder the head of state.
Unsurprisingly, the pension reform continued Emmanuel Macron, Thursday March 30, during his first trip to France since using 49.3 two weeks ago. A passage in force which caused strong social tensions throughout the country. The place had been carefully chosen to illustrate the theme of the day, the government’s “water” plan, but also to ensure the safety of the President of the Republic.
Savines-le-Lac is a relatively isolated commune and the main road passes by a bridge where a filter dam had been installed. The Head of State came by plane and then by helicopter while the police cleared the road of a group of demonstrators displaying flags of the CGT, Force Ouvrière, Solidaires or the Confederation. peasant. A prefectural decree also banned demonstrations on public roads in the territory of Serre-Ponçon throughout the day.
“We stutter”
History to settle the subject fairly quickly, the President of the Republic answered questions from journalists upon his arrival. “There is a dispute and there is an opposition, that’s why the Prime Minister will receive the inter-union next week”he declared without showing any signs of openness on the substance of his reform, believing that “Things had been clarified at the time of the motion of censure”. « I’m not going to say the same thing every four days, otherwise we stutter”he evacuates.
With this visit, the ambition of the Elysée is to open a new window, even if the eleventh day of mobilization of the unions is scheduled for Thursday April 6, and if the Constitutional Council must deliver its opinion on April 14, next “deadline on the democratic path of this text”selon M. Macron.
If the Head of State does not want to see the news ” to stutter “, tensions remain high. Impossible to know if he still has the leeway to move the media agenda. He hopes to gradually get out of the reform with the obsession to seize the major issues that impact the daily life of the French: “There is a social protest that exists against this reform but that does not mean that everything must stop, we continue to work because there are problems of inflation, we must continue to reduce unemployment, we have to respond to the problems of drought, we have to prepare for the coming season, there are food issues, we have geopolitics. I do my job. »
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