Hollande
tries to avoid ‘death by irrelevance’
The
Socialist president doesn’t look like a man in charge, except when
it comes to chiding his economy minister.
By PIERRE BRIANÇON
4/15/16, 12:14 AM CET Updated 4/15/16, 5:21 PM CET
PARIS — French
President François Hollande tried Thursday night to climb out of
historic depths of presidential unpopularity in a long television
interview intended to win back the hearts and minds of young and
Socialist voters who have deserted him.
But the 100-minute
broadcast, where Hollande was interviewed by journalists and four
citizens from varied professional and political backgrounds, ended up
sounding like a laundry list of reforms and decisions taken since
2012, without any indication of what France’s Socialist president
intends to do in his last year in office.
The prime-time TV
program — the first such long interview Hollande has given in more
than six months — was intended as a way for the president to avoid
what one aide earlier this week called “death by irrelevance” in
the last year of his five-year term.
It will, however,
take more than 100 minutes for Hollande to become a credible
candidate to succeed himself. He said he would decide whether to run
or not in 2017 “at the end of the year.”
“He knows what he
owes me” — François Hollande discussing Economy Minister
Emmanuel Macron
“I will reform
every single day of my remaining term,” he said at one point in the
program, without announcing any new reforms save what has already
been announced, such as the labor market reform that is meeting
fierce opposition from French unions and students. Hollande insisted
that he would not withdraw the bill, contrary to the demands of some
union leaders.
Hollande said
“things are better” than when he took office four years ago. “But
better doesn’t mean good,” he acknowledged.
It may take more
than a presidential affirmation, however, to convince French voters
that his politics will produce tangible results to shrink the jobless
numbers — the criteria Hollande said he wanted to be judged on
during his 2012 campaign.
Hollande tried to
defend his record and give some coherence to his policies, which have
disappointed his electoral base, by explaining that he wanted both to
“modernize” France and “protect its social model.”
The modernization
part was, he said, the “supply shock” lifting a big tax burden
weighing on business, fiscal discipline and the labor market reform
intended to boost job creation. The protection part was made up of
safeguarding the country’s health and pension systems, better
rights for the unemployed and new measures designed to help young
workers and students.
Hollande failed to
convince Anne-Laure Constanza, a young entrepreneur who interviewed
him in the second part of the program on the multiple obstacles to
hiring, and told him of her disappointment that he watered down the
labor reform bill. Interviewed on French TV after the president had
spoken, she told of her “frustration” at what she perceived as
the lack of convincing answers.
Véronique Roy, the
mother of an Islam convert who traveled to Syria and died there, told
Hollande one reason for her son’s and others’ actions was that
existing laws on secularism had not been properly enforced in French
banlieues for ages.
“I can never
promise you that factories will never close” — François Hollande
In his exchange with
her, Hollande said 170 French citizens had died in Syria, while 600 —
200 of whom women — are believed to be there still. He said about
2,000 people currently residing in France are considered potential
recruits for ISIL.
Antoine Demeyer, a
bus driver from the North Region and a supporter of the far-right
National Front, asked Hollande about immigration but mostly about the
dire economic state of regions such as his, which have paid heavy
dues to globalization, with factories closing and whole industries
disappearing.
“I can never
promise you that factories will never close. What matters is that we
can create new activities,” Hollande said.
He was also
questioned by Marwen Belkaïd, a 22-year-old business school student
who cast his first ever vote for Hollande in 2012 but doesn’t
intend to do so again. The president gave a long list of steps his
government had taken to improve education in the most
socially-challenged cities or districts, but failed to convince his
questioner, who said after the program that Hollande “had heard,
but not listened.”
Hollande was also
asked about his Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron, who a few hours
earlier in London had refused to rule out running for president in
2017, after launching a political “movement” of his own last
week.
“I know his
talent,” Hollande said. “He has the right to talk to the French
and defend new ideas. But that must be within the team and under my
authority. He knows what he owes me. It’s a matter of personal and
political loyalty.”
That may have been
the only moment in the program that the French president showed some
decisiveness and projected the image of a man in charge.
Authors:
Pierre Briançon
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