MACRON: WEAK EUROPE NEEDS NEW LEADERS
Pledges to end France’s state of emergency
PARIS • Europe has “lost its way” and requires a “new generation of leaders” to revive it, Emmanuel Macron warned Monday in a stateof-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 $880,000, 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 aides said that the French had made it clear they wanted a “vertical” power structure with a powerful leader in the image of Charles de Gaulle who steers clear of day-to-day politics but makes it clear he calls 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 skepticism that comes from it.
“I believe firmly in Europe. But I don’t find the skepticism unjustified.”
Brexit is a “symptom” of a “failure ... that we must have the courage to face head-on,” Macron insisted.
Focusing mainly on domestic politics, France’s youngest leader, at 39, since Napoleon said that he would seek direct approval from voters in a referendum if parliament failed to approve his reforms quickly enough.
He pledged to end France’s state of emergency, which has been in place since the 2015 Paris attacks, this autumn to “guarantee full respect for individual liberties” which rights groups say have been violated.
Instead, Macron promised to inscribe much of the emergency measures into permanent law in order to fight Islamic extremism and other threats “without pity ... without weakness.” The difference is 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 who will “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 socalled Congress, but recent predecessors have only done so in times of crisis or constitutional reforms. Opponents said that the timing of the speech disrespectfully upstaged his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who is due to outline his government’s agenda today.
Marine Le Pen, the Front National leader, said that 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.”
CRITICS DESCRIBED THE GATHERING AT THE PALACE OF LOUIS XIV AS ‘RIDICULOUS.’