Lhe President of the Republic set up the National Council for Refoundation (CNR) on Thursday 8 September. Its creation was announced during the legislative campaign, in an interview broadcast on June 3 granted to several regional dailies, and reaffirmed many times since.
The very title, a reference to the National Council of Resistance, is not neutral. The term “refoundation” implies, for its part, fundamental reforms, and above all a radical change in the governance of the country. Such a political turning point requires getting out of the vagueness that today generates the disinterest and skepticism of citizens, and provides a pretext for opposition that most often stems from political postures. It is therefore urgent that the president clarifies the nature and functioning of the CNR, under penalty of being accused of creating a new “thing”.
But this initiative can trigger a renewal of democracy, under three conditions: the strength of ambition, the sincerity of the method, the requirement in the results.
Giving meaning to public action
The ambition of a refoundation is undoubtedly, first of all, to give meaning to public action. Recent crises, from the “yellow vests” to the consequences of the war at the gates of the European Union, via Covid-19, have led successive governments – especially during the last five-year term – to respond to the emergency with immediate and specific measures, giving the image of political leaders undergoing, and not mastering, events.
Admittedly, it was necessary to respond to the immediate suffering, but the urgency overshadowed the meaning. However, political action is based on the alliance between the immediate response and the construction of a long-term perspective. Without one, politics is disembodied; without the other, she is blind.
This need to combine the short term and the long term is essential for all the major problems of our society: global warming requires emergency measures, and saving the planet is part of the long term.
At a time when the President of the Republic is placing education and health at the heart of the overhaul he wants, there is an urgent need to stop the tumble in the results of French pupils in international comparative surveys, just as we do not can wait to provide answers to the hospital crisis and the health divide caused by medical deserts.
Urgency and perspective
But, for school as for health, equality, to which our fellow citizens are attached, before success through school and before the right to health will require more time than one, or even two five-year terms. The difficulty is in the choice between short-term measures and what is long-term. The CNR can be the place where a consensus is forged on the sharing of these times, where the alliance between urgency and perspective is built.
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