Macron blasts ‘weakened’ Europe
FRANCE: Europe has ‘‘lost its way’’ and requires a ‘‘new generation of leaders’’ to revive it, Emmanuel Macron warned yesterday in a state of the union-style address at the Palace of Versailles.
In a 90-minute speech to both houses of parliament, the French president said: ‘‘The last 10 years have been cruel for Europe. We have managed crises but we have lost our way.’’
Critics described the gathering at the palace of Louis XIV, which is said to have cost up to €600,000 (NZ$940,000), as ‘‘ridiculous’’ and proof of Macron’s ‘‘pharaonic’’ drift towards a ‘‘republican monarchy’’.
A group of far-left and centrist MPS boycotted the address. But Macron aides said the French people had made it clear that they wanted a ‘‘vertical’’ power structure with a powerful leader in the image of Charles de Gaulle, who steered clear of day-to-day politics but made it clear that he called the shots.
In a speech which he said would become an annual affair, Macron said: ‘‘The building of Europe has been weakened by the spread of bureaucracy and by the growing scepticism that comes from it. I believe firmly in Europe. But I don’t find the scepticism unjustified.’’
Brexit was a ‘‘symptom’’ of a ‘‘failure ... that we must have the courage to face head on’’, he said.
Focusing mainly on domestic politics, France’s youngest leader, at 39, since Napoleon Bonaparte said he would seek direct approval from voters in a referendum if parliament failed to approve his reforms quickly enough.
Macron pledged to end France’s state of emergency, which has been in place since the 2015 Paris terror attacks, later this year to ‘‘guarantee full respect for individual liberties’’ which rights groups say have been violated.
Instead, he promised to inscribe much of the emergency measures into permanent law, in order to fight Islamist extremism and other threats ‘‘without pity ... without weakness’’. The difference was that they would be overseen by judges, he said.
The president also proposed to cut the number of members by a third in both houses of parliament, which would ’’legislate less’’ but ‘‘act faster’’.
Macron swept to power in May on a ‘‘neither Left nor Right’’ platform that has shaken up French politics. His Republique en Marche party won an absolute majority in legislative elections last month, bringing a slew of political novices to parliament.
Macron is not the first French leader to hold a so-called Congress, but recent predecessors have only done so in times of crisis or constitutional reforms.
Opponents said the timing of the speech disrespectfully upstaged his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who is due to outline his government’s agenda today. Macron dismissed this, saying: ‘‘It is up to the president to outline the meaning of the fiveyear term … it’s up to the prime minister to flesh it out.’’
In comments that will further irk the French media, who in recent days he claimed was unable to cover his ’’complex’’ thoughts, Macron told journalists to stop their ‘‘incessant hunt for scandal’’.
Since his election, his campaign director Richard Ferrand has come under fire for alleged nepotism. Macron, who has pledged to clean up French politics with a new law, claimed the media buried politicians before the facts were properly verified.
Political opponents lambasted the speech as an endless ramble. Marine Le Pen, the Front National leader, said Macron’s vision got lost in a ‘‘lyrical haze’’. Jean-luc Melenchon, leader of France Unbowed, dismissed it as a ‘‘interminable shower of truisms’’ that left him ‘‘bored to death’’.
– Telegraph Group