Macron cuvée 2021, it’s back to the scrapyard

No more than Santa Claus, it is not good to believe in the “world after” of Macronie. Looking at the upcoming reform calendar, 2021 is likely to go in the same direction as before. So, of course, there is this constitutional referendum for the climate, the concrete effects of which we can hardly see beyond the attempted presidential plebiscite within a year of the election. But, for the rest, Emmanuel Macron intends to resume his habits. The “Spring 2021”, this is the horizon set by the president during his greetings to the French, beyond which we should be drawn from the current effects of the epidemic. It will then be a question of building “The answers that will not make (the debt of the Covid) a burden for future generations”.

Austerity and “flexibility”, in short, the old neoliberal pots. On the social front, the executive is preparing the return of the reform of unemployment insurance and that, possible, of that of pensions. But it is not only the social model that the executive is preparing to tear apart: local communities will be subjected to the “4D” law, which dismantles the one and indivisible Republic by generalizing the principle of “territorial differentiation” .

Especially, if he can play the modest ones by asserting that the decisions related to the pandemic could prevent him “To be a candidate”, the president is already campaigning for re-election. For that, it will be a question of embodying the order and the regal. This will be the case with the contested bill “Reinforcing the republican principles”. Emmanuel Macron also intends to continue his security momentum with Sarkozy accents. Now in the hands of the senatorial right, the “comprehensive security” bill has not been abandoned by Macronie, who is awaiting his return to the Assembly to once again artil against public freedoms. An entire program.

1All-security, the common thread of the end of the mandate

Political then institutional crisis, massive demonstrations throughout France, cacophony in the ranks of the majority: the proposed law “global security” was the soap opera of the end of the year. From the beginning of 2021, it will make its return for a season 2 which promises to be just as problematic from the point of view of civil liberties. The Assembly voted on it at first reading; the Senate will examine it in committee at the end of January before debating it in session from March. The right, in the majority in the Luxembourg Palace, fully shares the objective of better protecting the police but counts “To put order in a disorder of form, method and writing”, in the words of the co-rapporteur (LR) of the text. Clearly, the senators will rewrite the text before the parliamentary shuttle sends it back to the Palais Bourbon for a new examination. A rewrite which will primarily concern article 24 which aims to limit the possibilities of filming police and gendarmes. The right intends to merge it with a provision of the bill “Reinforcing the republican principles”. While waiting to have control again, Macronie has also promised to work on a new writing of this same article 24. Beyond that, this bill, contested until the UN, provides for the generalization of drones, the privatization of certain police powers and the increase in the powers of municipal police forces.

At the end of January, a security Beauvau will also be held. One way to calm tensions between police unions and government after Macron, lip service, admitted the existence of “Police violence”. This meeting, supposed to reform the police to “Improve working conditions” of the profession and ” consolidate “ its links with the French, should be steered by the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin.

2Unemployment, pensions: the unearthed reforms

Poverty and precariousness increased in 2020 … social damage will accelerate in 2021! Between reforms that remained in the closet during the crisis and new texts, the government wants to move quickly on the “Transformation of the social model”, one year before the electoral deadlines. The pension reform could thus make a comeback, after being imposed by 49-3 on February 29, on the eve of the Covid-19 epidemic, which forced its postponement. It’s about a “Top priority” for Bruno Le Maire, while the Minister of Labor, Élisabeth Borne, instead put forward that of “Protect jobs”. This is how it justifies its reform of unemployment insurance, the main aim of which is to save 2.4 billion euros on the backs of job seekers. Developed in November 2019 and amended in 2020, it will be fully applied on April 1, 2021, according to the executive, despite opposition from unions. While the number of unemployed explodes, they will mainly see the method of calculating their rights evolve, provided that the government wins at the beginning of the year a showdown with the Council of State, which has expressed reservations. . In a study published on November 6, Unédic, a joint management body for unemployment insurance, provides for loss of rights for 1.2 million people in one year if these measures apply.

Occupational health will also be the subject of a major reform. On December 9, despite the unfavorable opinion of the CGT, unions and employers concluded a national inter-professional agreement (ANI). It will be followed by a bill in 2021, with no real progress for employees a priori, especially in taking into account psychosocial or professional risks, while occupational medicine could be gradually transferred to city medicine, thus weakening the responsibility of employers. Finally, the status of “Platform workers” (Uber type) could be reviewed, the government planning to floor on their social protection, today almost non-existent.

3The inflammable debate on “separatism”

The “separatism” law, announced on October 2 by the Mureaux speech, was finally presented on December 9. But, in the meantime, the terrorist assassination of Professor Samuel Paty on October 16 has significantly changed the political climate in the country and the content of the bill. “Reinforcing respect for republican principles”. Exit the social component, postponed until Greek calendars. Make way for a new repressive arsenal that allows the Head of State to position himself as the guarantor of “The republican order”, a dangerous semantic drift. The law does not go into detail: examined in Parliament next February, it provides in particular for increased control for associations, any subsidy resulting in a “Commitment of the association to respect the principles and values ​​of the Republic”. Above all, the state wants to arrogate to itself the power to dissolve them more easily, via the prefects. The text will modify the rules of law 1901 to encourage Muslim associations to switch to the regime of law 1905, which governs relations between religions and the State. Articles 4 and 5 also seek to establish a new offense in order to protect State officials from “Threats, violence or intimidation”, but the wording leaves one to fear a wider use than the stated goal. The law signals the return of a Macronie fad: the fight against “Online hate”, that already carried the Avia law but which had been rebutted by the Constitutional Council. The text also relates to home schooling: it will switch to a so-called derogatory regime, ie compulsory school with a restriction of exemptions for special cases.

4A territorial big bang to experience in “4D”

Each new president has his own “territorial big bang”. Although Macron denies making any “Major institutional reforms”, his project aims to upset all local communities. The “4D” bill – “Decentralization”, “differentiation”, “deconcentration” and “Decomplexification” – will be examined at the end of January-beginning of February by the Council of Ministers before a parliamentary debate in the spring. Concretely, by this “New act of decentralization”, the president wants to reconcile the central state and local elected officials, whose relationship has been more than damaged in recent years. He wishes to transfer certain skills but above all to leave them the possibility of multiplying local experiments to “Implement the principle of territorial differentiation”. They could then acquire powers normally devolved on other institutions.

“It is the fundamental idea that, in order to sew up the country, it must go through hand-stitching and an adaptation to the diversity of the territories”, explains Jacqueline Gourault, Minister of Territorial Cohesion. The president of the Communist group in the Senate, Éliane Assassi, rather sees the door open to “A federalist evolution of our Republic, which would then no longer be one and indivisible. This liberal principle will accentuate the inequalities between the territories by favoring the richest, who alone will be able to broaden their skills ”.

Thus, from 2023, the volunteer regions will be able to transfer the management of national roads. The State also plans to entrust 1,200 kilometers of roads to the departments. Jacqueline Gourault has also announced “The decentralization of airports not appearing on the list of airports of national or international interest to communities”. The networks of Natura 2000 natural sites will also be the responsibility of the regions. Another change concerns regional health agencies, which were heavily criticized during the pandemic. Their reorganization will leave more room for local elected officials, who will constitute a third of the boards of directors. The departments will also be able to experiment with the recentralization of the RSA.

5 Towards the end of the state of health emergency?

It is on April 1, 2021 that the provisions of the law of March 23, 2020 establishing a state of health emergency, which was extended a second time on October 17, should end. As a reminder, it is this exceptional device that allows the government to limit the fundamental freedoms of movement, demonstration, assembly and business. However, the government plans to examine, by the summer, a text establishing a “Lasting health emergency”. “This is not a way to include it in common law”, do we defend at LaREM, but “To make it sustainable and to be able to activate it in the event of a new health crisis”. There is certainly no question, for the majority, of limiting public freedoms ad vitam, but, in fact, to keep the possibility of it under the elbow.

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