On the other end of the line an official at the Élysée interrupts us. “The CNR? Ah, sorry, no, I don't know anything about it. I think you'll get any news before me.” A few days earlier a government minister had asked, with a straight face: “But have you understood what it's about?” Nonetheless, today, on Thursday September 8th, three months after announcing it in an interview with the regional press, Emmanuel Macron launched his Conseil National de la Refondation (CNR) or national council for reform at Marcoussis in the southern suburbs of Paris.
Yet between that official announcement and today's launch, the political landscape changed. The head of state suffered a major setback at the legislative elections in June and has since been governing without an outright majority at the National Assembly. This complete turnaround in the political situation persuaded some people during the summer that plans for the CNR would never get off the ground But that is to misunderstand Emmanuel Macron. The president is convinced that the new council is the right lever to spark a “cultural revolution” and “bring the national together” as he said in June, in what was a clear historical reference to the war-time Resistance body the Conseil National de la Résistance – with which the new body just happens to share the same acronym.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
At the Élysée the recent political storms have clearly not dampened down the prevailing optimism for the project. On Tuesday, two days before the launch, the president's entourage sought to persuade journalists of the “democratic renewal” that would be brought about by this “innovative” concept, which is a symbol of the “new method” of governing promised by Emmanuel Macron since his re-election. The CNR will be charged with looking at “solutions” in five areas: health, education, employment, environmental transition and looking after the needs of an ageing population in France.
Taking part at the launch with Emmanuel Macron were around 50 representatives from unions, political parties and various associations. After the head of state's opening speech at 9.30am there was a “period for discussion” which, according to his entourage, the president wanted to be “extremely long”. There were also presentations on the country's current situation given by former minister Pierre Moscovici, the lead president of the public accounts watchdog the Cour des Comptes, Corinne Le Quéré, president of the Haut Conseil pour le Climat, and François Villeroy de Galhau, who is governor of the Banque de France.
It was a full agenda, but to what end? It is hard to find supporters of the president who are able to answer this question, given the fact that the creation of the CNR has not exactly been an open process. By Wednesday morning, for example, the Élysée had still not sent out the list of guests, nor the detailed arrangements for the day. Even worse, no one really knows what will come out of this first day or the themed and local “mini-CNRs” that are to follow. “We're not going to take over the roles or take the place of others,” says the presidential entourage, who instead speak simply of a “coordination” tool to “put people around the table”.
The problem is that the “people” in question have not shown any burning desire to gather around this particular table. This reluctance includes political groups, many of whose representatives have declined the president's invitation to attend. Gérard Larcher, the right-wing president of the French Senate, was one of the first to do so. “I don't think that this body can produce the democratic renewal that you aspire to,” the senior figure from Les Républicains (LR) wrote to President Macron at the end of August, in a letter revealed by Le Figaro newspaper.
Nor has the Left flocked to take part in this great event in the Paris suburbs. All the various elements of the broad-left alliance, the Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale (NUPES), from the socialists to the radical-left La France Insoumise, from the communists to the greens, have been agreed on that in recent days. “I don't really know what it is,” was the dismissive response of Boris Vallaud, president of the Socialist Party's group of MPs at the National Assembly. “There's no shortage of bodies, what with the National Assembly, the Senate, the CESE [editor's note, the Conseil Économique, Social et Environnemental consultative assembly] … You really wonder what this thing is, whose acronym is a rather crude commandeering of a past legacy.”
Even Macron's former prime minister will not be there
At the other end of the political spectrum the far-right Rassemblement National also declined the invitation to attend. “It's Emmanuel Macron's latest gadget after the Great Debate,” said the RN's interim president Jordan Bardella, referring to the national initiative launched in 2019. He said the correct forum for such discussions was the National Assembly. When confronted with the long list of absentees the minister cited earlier sighed: “If the opposition doesn't turn up it loses some of its clout, that's for sure.”
It is an understatement to say that this mass boycott of the CNR has caused considerable irritation inside the president's entourage. “It's playing politics,” fumed François Patriat, president of the Macron-supporting senators in the Senate. “Those who aren't coming are the same people who criticise the top-down nature of the Macron system and who demand partnership. If you're not capable of sitting around a table to find solutions because you don't like Macron … and it's hardly a trap!”
In addition to the absence of the opposition, Emmanuel Macron recently learnt that one of the key figures in his own camp would not be attending either. His former prime minister Édouard Philippe, who was invited as president of Horizons, a party allied to the government, offered his apologies for not attending, officially because of a diary clash - he is on a trip to Canada. Instead, his party was represented by Stéphanie Guiraud-Chaumeil, the little-known mayor of Albi in southern France. “Like everyone else Édouard didn't understand what this thing was, nor its scope,” said one supporter of the former premier.
The head of another key party allied to the government, François Bayrou, was present, however. The former minister and head of the MoDeem party, who is also the high commissioner for future planning for the government, was in fact asked by Emmanuel Macron to coordinate the setting up of the CNR. “He is looking after the preparatory work, the monitoring, the running of it and the coordination” to ensure that the launch process “goes well,” said the Élysée. Sources close to Édouard Philippe mock such talk. “When you see that, it clearly doesn't make you want to get involved,” said one. “Bayrou doesn't have a reputation for being particularly productive or rousing.”
Among others present were members of associations representing mayors and councillors. Even here, however, it was not all plain sailing. François Sauvadet, president of Départements de France, which represents the country's départements or counties, Carole Delga, president of Régions de France, and David Lisnard, president of the Association des Maires de France (AMF), had all indicated they would not attend today's gathering. They finally agreed to after a meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée, while at the same time describing the event as “one big grandstanding event”.
The comments they had made on the eve of the launch were even more stinging. “Just one week before the meeting, no agenda has been sent out,” noted David Lisnard in a letter seen by Mediapart. The mayor of Cannes, who is from the rightwing Les Républicains (LR), wrote of his regret that the approach to the consultation process was “very conventional and top-down” and said he feared that the CNR might “replace the necessary dialogue between the executive, Parliament and local councillors”.
But in the end these three representatives did attend today's launch of the CNR, as did representatives of other local elected officials. “Going into it with doubts means making a judgement in advance,” said Michel Fournier, president of the group representing rural mayors the Association des Maires Ruraux de France (AMRF). “Rural mayors are very pragmatic - they are open to everything and not politicised like others.”
This kind of support will please the government which has spent some time counting the list of absentees from today's launch. On top of the Left, the LR, the RN and Édouard Philippe, one should also add to that list the CGT, Force Ouvrière, CFE-CGC, Solidaires and FSU trade unions. Those that did turn up were representatives from Macron's ruling party and its allies, a handful of unions – the CFDT, CFTC and Unsa – employers' organisations, and some representatives from associations and mutual societies.
The Élysée has promised an “interactive, frank and unfiltered dialogue”. This was an expression Emmanuel Macron last used during the Citizens' Convention on Climate – before finally throwing most of that body's proposals into the bin.
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- The original French version of this article can before found here.
English version by Michael Streeter