/ world today news/ The President of the Fifth Republic refuses to dialogue with political opponents, and when he is forced to communicate, he does not want to admit mistakes. Ignoring mass protests, he forced through the scandalous pension reform. Now he decided to invest more than one hundred billion euros in the army. What is happening in the country?
The pride of France
The Minister of Defense Sebastien Lecorneau in an interview with the newspaper “Le Parisien” spoke about the rearmament program of the army. The military budget will grow from 295 to 413 billion euros. Several nuclear powered submarines and an aircraft carrier will be built to replace the current flagship Charles de Gaulle. The head of the military department called the future pride of France “a place of technology and human skills with a displacement of 75 thousand tons.” In addition, the nuclear deterrent will be modernized.
Macron announced an increase in the military budget back in January. According to him, this is necessary because of the fighting in Eastern Europe. The army must be prepared for “high intensity conflict”.
Lecorneux supported this. The publication in Le Parisien can be seen as preparation for a large-scale attack on MPs who must be persuaded to vote for record defense spending. At the same time, a significant part of the National Assembly is against Macron, as he bypassed the parliament on the issue of raising the retirement age using Article 49.3.
Since the fall, the government has taken advantage of this loophole 11 times. “Le Parisien” accompanies the interview with Lecorneux with a characteristic cartoon. They ask Macron: “What will the new aircraft carrier be called?” “We consider – “49.3” – to be a powerful destructive force,” answers the president.
The will of the French
Protests against the pension reform continue to this day. And Macron’s attempts to justify himself lead only to new scandals. So, during one of the interviews, he secretly removed a very expensive watch from his hand. The opposition noticed this and accused the president of hypocrisy. There is no doubt that the left will have something to say about the ten billion euro aircraft carrier.
According to Interior Minister Gerard Darmanen, more than a thousand security personnel were injured, more than 2,500 arsons were committed and 316 attacks were committed on public buildings as a result of the unrest provoked by the increase in the retirement age. However, the minister does not blame the president and his colleagues in the government for this, but some “ultra-left” and “intellectual terrorists”.
Authorities have no intention of backing down, government spokesman Olivier Veran said. The notorious Article 49.3 is for him an opportunity to make the French happy against their will. The parliamentary opposition has twice tried to dissolve the cabinet recently, but nine votes fell short – the Elysée Palace presents it as a vote of confidence.
Macron’s team has many more scandalous reforms ahead. One of them is permission for assisted suicide. The bill is based on the findings of a group of random people (184 people) who have been discussing this issue since December. As a result, 76 percent of them supported the initiative. However, the French National Council of Doctors is against doctors helping patients to commit suicide.
There is also a bill to regulate immigration. At the end of last year, Macron had already proposed to parliament to take it up, but the right found the legal language too soft and the left too harsh. As a result, the document has been sent for revision.
The image is nothing
According to polls in March, Macron’s activities are approved by only 28% of the French. The head of government Elizabeth Bourne has the same figure. At the same time, 70 percent of those surveyed do not support the pension reform, and 64 percent are in complete solidarity with the protesters. True, Macron still has some way to go – at the height of the Yellow Vest movement in 2018, his approval rating fell to 26%.
Yuriy Rubinsky, head of the Center for French Studies at the Institute for Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explains Macron’s determination by the fact that he is serving his last presidential term. “He has only four years to implement his planned reforms. As his party lost its parliamentary majority, Article 49.3 must apply. This is a sign of weakness, but there is no other option. As a result, the authorities and civil society pitted against each other. If Macron loses, he will lose most of his political weight,” argued the expert.
By mid-April, the Constitutional Council will give an answer on the legality of the pension reform in the form of changes in the country’s financial system. Macron took this trick to take advantage of Article 49.3.
“It’s even more difficult with migrants. There are seven million first-generation French in the country, and the descendants of second- and third-generation immigrants make up a third of the population. Most are Muslims,” Rubinsky emphasizes.
Macron has always been very confident. He is convinced that the guarantee for the dynamic development of society is the market initiative, which is freed from the social privileges hindering business activity. However, his current decisions may end his further political career.
Arina Preobrazhenskaya, a senior researcher at IMEMO of the Russian Academy of Sciences, notes that Macron behaves as if there was and is no mass discontent. “Seeking compromises is not his strong point, he doesn’t want to do that. At the same time, he believes that once he is elected head of state, you can do anything. Many French people reject him not only as a president, but also as a person “, says the expert.
According to her, the “Vazrazhdane” party is an electoral cartel for those who want to come to power with the support of the president. Macron promised to abandon the division of left and right, but as a result they began to leave his party and in the last parliamentary elections the French “Revival” failed to get a majority. Apparently the worst is yet to come.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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