The President of the Republic was the guest, this Wednesday, of the television news of 13 Hours of TF1 and France 2. He returned to the use of 49.3 to pass the pension reform, without regretting anything, despite the growing protest .
In reaction, the oppositions and the unions castigate the answers of the Head of State to the questions put to him by the journalists. They denounce “contempt” and “lies”.
“It’s bullshit and contempt”
On the side of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, secretary general, was quick to react by accusing the head of state of having “lied” on pensions “to hide his inability to find a majority to vote for his unfair reform “.
He was the first to react but not the last. Philippe Martinez, secretary general of the CGT, also spoke quickly. “It’s bullshit and contempt for the millions of people who demonstrate”.
Before adding, “This interview is lunar. It’s: everything is fine, I’m doing everything well, nothing is happening in the street. There is no answer”, denounced ‚Philippe Martinez in front of journalists in Tours, while he attends the congress of the CFE-CGC.
At the microphone of BFMTV, Céline Verzeletti, confederal secretary of the CGT, considered that the intervention of Emmanuel Macron was “not really useful”. “He doesn’t make any decisions. It absolutely does not take into account the millions of people who have taken to the streets or who are on strike,” she said.
“We are in a permanent lie,” said Frédéric Souillot, FO general secretary. “When he says that there has been no proposal from the unions, he is lying. When he says that there was a need to make this reform, he is lying, ”he repeated several times on LCI. Then, he took the opportunity to call for a strike tomorrow, “Let’s mobilize tomorrow, even more than usual. Through the strike and the mobilization, we will roll back this law”.
The reactions of elected officials
Nearly two hours after the speech of the President of the Republic, Marine Le Pen spoke from the National Assembly by castigating, at first, on the hour of the interview with Emmanuel Macron. “The role of a President of the Republic is to address everyone, without exclusion or contempt, to find the words to reassure and unite”. “The day before, he saw fit to qualify as “crowd”, the people who demonstrate en masse, as if he liked to maintain a confrontation with the French. »
In a rather long speech, the ex-president of the RN declared that Emmanuel Macron made “mechanical and dilatory remarks from a man who seems alone. While he was supposed to talk about institutions, he got lost in communication. He continues to want to do battle with the whole world. The country does not need this and does not expect this. He has only to offer an empty speech”.
At the same time, Éric Ciotti (LR) castigated solutions “not up to the crisis”.
On their Twitter accounts, other elected officials reacted very quickly after Emmanuel Macron’s comments during this interview. For example, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan who believes that the president “takes us for c…”.
But also, Sandrine Rousseau who speaks of “irresponsibility”.
Thomas Portes, Insoumis deputy, was quick to react by castigating a “brass of honor to the unions”.
After Emmanuel Macron’s accusations considering that the oppositions “extract themselves from the principles of reality”, Éric Coquerel replied to the president.
“Macron likes the opposition which does not oppose, the unions when they are not on strike, democracy when it consists in depriving the assembly of votes, work when there are laws against the workers”, asserts the deputy LFI, Chairman of the Finance Committee.
In his interview, Emmanuel Macron mentioned the situation of the smicards. “Never have the smicards seen their purchasing power increase so much for decades,” he said. A sentence which was taken up by Sébastien Chenu, deputy RN who challenges the president “never have the poor been so happy and the French so happy”.