As he approaches the first anniversary of his election last year, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared in a live interview on Sunday evening with Mediapart’s cofounder and publishing editor Edwy Plenel and Jean-Jacques Bourdin of BFM-TV. The two-hour interview, which was streamed live on Mediapart and other French media (), was the French president’s first public appearance since France joined the US and Britain in missile strikes this weekend against chemical weapons plants of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Among the many issues discussed were his government’s controversial reforms of the public sector, including budget restraints and job shedding, the re-organisation of the French railways system and its opening up to private competition, and also economic and tax policies and the environment.
The full interview, along with with studio debates from Mediapart before and after the interview, can be replayed here (in French). English translations of the highlights from the interview, held at the Palais de Chaillot theatre in central Paris, are reported further below.
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- On the US, French and British strikes on Syria this weekend:
The French president said the strikes were justified despite the lack of a United Nations mandate because of the “constant blockages by the Russians”, in a reference to Russia’s use of its veto, and underlined that the bombing campaign was led by three members of the UN security council. He also said that he had convinced US President Donald Trump not to effect a rapid withdrawal of a military presence in Syria, and that the three sites targeted involved a joint US-British and French strike, and two others led separately by the US and France.
“I want here to pay tribute to our soldiers [sic]. The operation was perfectly led, in a remarkable manner. It is the professionalism of our military, of our equipment. Three sites of production and treatment of chemical weapons were targeted. One site in a joint way with the American and British forces, another by the Americans, the third by the French […] we succeeded the military operation, the capacity for chemical weapons have been destroyed. There was no [human] victim.”
“This decision was taken, on the question of principle, as of last Sunday, after the first identification of chemical arms in Eastern Ghouta. It is in line with the engagements we undertook. We obtained from our services and the services of our allies proof that chemical weapons had been used. We obtained the proof that these weapons could be attributed to the Syrian regime. Which is what led us to carry out this intervention.”
“We intervened in a very precise framework […] in the strict framework of this international legitimacy and without declaring war on the regime of Bashar al-Assad”.
Importantly, Macron implied that he had restrained US President Donald Trump from extending the strikes to other targets than those hit overnight on Friday (Trump announced, on Twitter, after the offensive, “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military”).
“France did not declare war on the regime of Bashar al-Assad,” Macron said. “We worked so that international law is no longer violated, nor the resolutions of the UN […] We are preparing a political solution”, he added, to “allow for a transition period”.
"France is the country that has been the most active on the diplomatic and humanitarian front these last months. We came to a time when these strikes were indispensable to give credibility to our community. To build this durable solution in Syria, it is necessary to discuss Iran, Syria, Russia, » added Macron.
Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel suggested to Macron that Donald Trump was uninterested in the fate of the Syrian people, and that his real target was Iran, and that there was a very real risk of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East with the war drumming of the Trump administration, the Israeli government and Saudi Arabia. Macron said he had raised the humanitarian crisis in Yemen with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to France last week. He added, “we have reacquired credibility in face of the Russians” with the strikes this week against the Assad regime which, he said, had effectively divided “the Turks and the Russians”.
He also said that his programmed trip to Russia at the end of May was still on the agenda.
Mediapart’s Edwy Plenel tackled the French president over the absence of a consultation of the French parliament before the strikes in Syria, arguing that there was “a democratic problem” in that “you are the only one to decide”, adding: “Do you find this archaism normal?”
“I wouldn’t talk about a solitary power,” replied Macron, “I will talk about the responsibility of the head of the armed forces [the status of the French president] decided by the constitution. It might not please you, but that was decided by the French people. And I don’t decide alone, I decide with the chief of staff of the armed forces.”
Plenel insisted: “But the question is that of control and the power of parliament, to which Macron replied: “It is set out by the constitution […] we won’t change the constitution because it doesn’t please you? There were others who wanted to change it but during the presidential election, but they didn’t win it.”
- On the issue of tax fraud:
Mediapart’s Edwy Plenel and BFM-TV’s Jean-Jacques Bourdin fiercely tackled Emmanuel Macron over “tax optimisation”, a frequently used corporate euphemism for tax avoidance or tax evasion, practised by French companies, citing glaring examples (see the latest in this Mediapart investigation on the tax affairs of luxury goods and fashion group Kering). Bourdin raised the suggestion that Bernard Arnault, the head of French luxury goods giant, LVMH, was “a friend” of Macron’s. “I have no ‘friends’,” replied Macron. “Neither you nor I are judges, you are interviewers,” he continued. “I am not here to judge whoever it might be.”
“What you qualify as tax fraud is not punished as a crime by [French] law,” said Macron. “The president of the [French] republic gives no instruction regarding tax controls,” he said, adding that no minister does either. “We will be uncompromising on the question of tax fraud, I give the guarantee”.
Macron set out, in professorial manner, that the tax haven advantages offered by European Union member states such as Malta and Luxembourg were not instances of “tax evasion”, but rather “tax optimisation”, to which Edwy Plenel countered “You are not our teacher and we are not your pupils”. Jean-Jacques Bourdin added, “But do you morally accept this tax evasion?”, telling Macron that there are many who fret over their financial situation at the end of each month, and that small businesses have no opportunity of using “tax optimisation”. “I am not moralising,” replied Emmanuel Macron, insisting on the difference between “tax evasion” and “tax optimisation”, prompting Plenel to point out that this was altogether “money that doesn’t go to hospitals, to schools, to road infrastructures”.
Macron tackled Edwy Plenel on Mediapart’s dispute with the French tax authorities over the question of VAT payments, which arose from Mediapart’s publicly avowed self-application of the same VAT rate as that applied to the French printed press, a more favourable rate than that applied to the online press, and which resulted in a tax adjustment penalty for Mediapart (see more on this here). “That’s undignified of you,” Plenel told Macron, reminding him of Mediapart’s open public combat against the unequal VAT rate laws.
- On the question of the recent rise in a levy – the “CSG” – imposed on pensioners' retirement payments to help fund the country’s social security system, and which for many represents a yearly loss of several hundred euros:
“Who pays the pensions? Workers!” argued Macron, who justified the rise as a compensation in the public budget for the planned reduction in social security payments made by young workers (see more here). “I betrayed no-one,” he said. “I don’t hide on that, I announced the measure during my [election] campaign. But as of November 2018, they [pensioners] will be largely compensated by the fall in hosing tax.” He said the abrogation of the housing tax, which will exonerate an estimated 80% of French households of all social categories, will not be supplanted by another levy. “There will be no creation of a new local tax, nor a new national tax,” he pledged.
- On the subject of the planned reform of the French railways network, which will notably open up the deeply indebted publicly-managed network to private competition, and which has prompted an ongoing two-month rolling strike campaign by railway workers that now spearheads growing social unrest:
“As of January 1st 2020, the state will progressively take back the debt,” promised Macron. The issue of writing off the debt is one of the key demands of railway workers’ unions, to allow the publicly managed railways operator, the SNCF, to compete against private competition. It was the first clarification about the debt, amounting to around 50 billion euros, since earlier comments by the French president and his government that “part” of the deficit would be “progressively” annulled during implementation of the contested reforms.
- On the growing social unrest, begun by the railway workers’ strike action, and which has now spread to university students who oppose a new reform of the criteria of selection to higher education, and which has spread to sectors as diverse as the justice system and hospital workers, prompting some to envisage a repeat of the 1968 revolts of 50 years ago:
Emmanuel Macron said he saw no “coagulation” between the growing different social movements, but insisted he was “listening” to their demands, and “respected” them. “I contest the orientation of your question which aims at seeing a logic, or which wants to create a coagulation in these discontents,” he told Edwy Plenel and Jean-Jacques Bourdin. “There aren’t as many as that. The discontent of the railway workers has little to do with the legitimate, profound unease in hospitals that endures since years ago.”
“In all the blockaded universities,” he said of the growing number of sit-ins that are now halting normal functioning of higher education institutions around France, and in particular in the Paris region, “those who block are minorities. Minority groups come along to block with a political project. Those are not students.”
- On the issue of migration:
Tackled by Mediapart’s Edwy Plenel over the French government’s attitude towards the current migrant crisis, and notably the criminal proceedings brought against those who have acted out of humanitarian concerns to help and shelter migrants on French territory, Macron countered:
“We face an unprecedented migratory phenomenon and which will endure. There are geopolitical conflicts, climate situations and an African demography that is there, a true bomb, it has to be said. Migrants turn towards Europe because we have this destiny linked with Africa.”
He said the right of asylum was “unconditional” and that it was respected. He drew a separation between asylum seekers and economic migrants who he said must be “accompanied back home”.
- On the situation of Muslims in France, and the issue of radical Islamic movements:
Islamic radicalisation, said Macron, was a “leprosy” in society. He said he believed that France had failed “in the most difficult neighbourhoods” where the problem was posed, and that in those areas “the school” had given up, on the problem. “These youngsters must be helped” at school, “they must be helped with access to university”, he said.
It is a campaign of reconquest that is one of the greatest challenges of our nation,” said the French president. “Today we have women and men who, in the name of the religion that is Islam, suggest to our youngster that they leave the [French] republic. The only way is to prohibit their activity and put the republic back. To succeed in that, their must be a better control of schooling put in place.”
“Today, there are between 4.5 and 6 million French citizens who are Islam believers,” said Macron. This religion is new to the [French] republic. In its history, it had a relationship with the Catholic, Jewish and protestant religion. It reconstructed itself. Islam appeared afterwards, whereas its rules are very different […] It is an event that has happened over these recent years. My belief is that if we must keep ourselves united, we must pacify the links between our society and the religions.”
- Finally, on the recent eviction of environmental activists and militants for alternative farming practices from the agricultural site of a now-abandoned airport project at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, in north-west France, which last week saw violent pitched battles between the militants and more than 2,000 gendarmes, and the destruction of the fledgling installations:
“There was an airport project,” said Macron. “People created a ZAD [zone to be defended] because they opposed the airport project. We decided not to construct this airport because it was no longer in accordance with our ecological priorities and that it was linked with a sense of injustice and betrayal of [certain] populations.”
He said that following his government’s decision to abandon the airport project the site had to be evacuated. “Those people were there illegally occupying the public domain. Some have an agricultural project, they lead it, they drive it, they were not evacuated,” he claimed, contrary to many of those on the site who denounce the police destruction of their farming units which they hoped to obtain official approval for (see more here and here). Everything that needs to be evacuated will be,” pledged Macron.