“What we are asking for, in the Senate, is not always more public spending”, estimates Bruno Retailleau
“If she wants to rely on the Senate, she must also receive the Senate group presidents. For the moment, she has ignored them, she has received the group presidents at the National Assembly”regretted Bruno Retailleau on the set of France 2, in response to a question on l’appel d’Elisabeth Borne at “the spirit of responsibility of senators” to adopt the restoration of border controls to fight against Covid-19. “On this text, I have always been in favor of border controls. The best way to protect the French is to protect the borders. Sure [qu’on accédera à la demande de la première ministre] but we will have questions to ask about the reintegration of the nursing staff (…). We want to know where they are with this reflection. »
“Since we don’t want to enter into a coalition, it requires compromises, steps towards each other (…). Consider Parliament and the Senate. We have been working on text by text in the Senate for five years, he defended. Our only line is the best interests of the country. With us, it’s never yes out of discipline and it’s never no out of Pavlovian reflex. »
The president of the LR group in the Senate set two conditions for the vote on the bill on purchasing power: that purchasing power be associated with work and the end of “whatever it costs”, still in force according to him.
“What we will ask, in the Senate, is not always more public spending”, he expressed. ” For example, to fight against social fraud, there are eight million more Vitale cards than there are French people. We want tamper-proof biometric Vitale cards. That’s billions in savings. There are steps we must take but if the government does not take steps towards us. If he doesn’t hear us, there will be a blockage, but the blockage will not come from us. »
Regarding the “Uber Files”, Mr. Retailleau estimated « naturel » that Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy, “meet business leaders, including foreigners, who wish to set up in France”. He finds it more problematic “the mix of genres”.
“We learned from the lobbyist who had worked precisely for this company that he had also worked – once he had left the company, of course – to raise funds for Emmanuel Macron’s campaign. That’s a mix of genres, exactly the same as we pointed out in the Senate with consulting firms like McKinsey where we have hundreds and hundreds of millions of euros spent by the State while we has many civil servants, which is still a paradox. It’s the same [membres de McKinsey] who were at the heart of the financing of Emmanuel Macron’s campaign in 2017 (…). I hope that tomorrow, during his interview on July 14, he will give another answer. »
Regarding the formula used by the Head of State and which he himself attributed to Jacques Chirac (“I touch one without moving the other”), he considers it to be a “media pirouette”.