The French president, Emmanuel Macron, will make a rare address to both houses of parliament on Monday in the gilded setting of the palace of Versailles, setting out his vision for a “transformation” of France, The Guardian.
But some opposition MPs on the left will boycott the gathering in the regal setting, accusing him of a “monarchical” drift.
Macron has summoned members of parliament and senators to Versailles, where he will make a sweeping speech about a French “renaissance”. The speech has been billed as a US-style state of the nation address. It is unheard of for a French president to make this gesture at the start of a presidency.
Macron will set out a raft of changes from the loosening of labour laws to institutional changes to the workings of parliament.
Much is at stake in the president’s speech. Polling shows French voters, who abstained in large numbers in last month’s parliament elections, want swift proof that Macron’s proposed altering of labour laws and changes to the French social safety net will bring down mass unemployment and ensure protections from economic gloom.
The planned address in the former seat of French kings provoked anger among leftist parliament members who announced they would boycott the meeting and attend a simultaneous street rally in Paris’s Place de la République.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the leftist France Unbowed group, which has 17 MPs, accused “Macron the pharaoh” of crossing a line in his “monarchical” approach to the presidency. The Communist party’s members of parliament also said they would boycott the speech and protest. Two members of the small centrist UDI party said they would not attend, complaining about the cost of the exercise.