Emmanuel Macron could make announcements in January about the Universal National Service (SNU). He would like to make it compulsory in order to heal the ties within a very divided age group.
What if conscription was soon to return? It would not, of course, be a question of training young people for war. But to force each age group, boys and girls, to spend a few weeks together in order to work on the environment and citizenship within the framework of the Universal National Service (SNU).
This is, according to our sources, what Emmanuel Macron would think about, who could make announcements in January on the subject. “The President would like to train young people in the consequences of climatic disasters – how to react in the event of forest fires, floods or tornadoes. But there is also, in him, a ‘war effect in Ukraine’. He wonders a lot how we manage to create unity in a country where the youth is divided between RN and LFI, “said a source familiar with the matter recently.
Macron leads the meetings himself
The matter would be serious and the project has been budgeted. If the compulsory character is retained with accommodation; it could cost around a billion and a half. A sum which also explains why the arbitrations have not yet been definitively decided. But the President of the Republic takes things very seriously. He himself leads the meetings on the subject. He could make the announcement of this major reform during a visit to a historic site or to a high school. Here again, several avenues are under study.
Only problem, the parliamentarians have not yet been consulted. “I only had two conversations aside with the minister”, assures us the MP PS Isabelle Santiago yet specialist in the question. She, who has even set up a working group on the subject, adds: “if something existed when we weren’t associated, that would be a real shame”.
Driver’s license key?
On the LFI side, we laugh: “we, it wouldn’t bother us. It’s in our program. We offer a paid year with a driving license,” smiles MP Hadrien Clouet. The government should not go that far and is only talking about a few unpaid weeks but is considering the possibility of offering driving licenses.
Candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promise during the 2017 presidential election, the Universal National Service is now carried out on a voluntary basis and is aimed at all young French people, boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 17. It includes a mandatory two-week stay, the purpose of which is to transmit a republican base and then a mission of general interest which takes place in the year following the cohesion stay.