“I want to tell you the recognition of the nation”: Emmanuel Macron tries to renew the link with the mayors – archyde

If he recognized “Misunderstandings at the beginning” of his mandate, Emmanuel Macron tried to defend his record, Thursday, November 18, in front of several thousand mayors meeting in congress in Paris. The President of the Republic wished to pay tribute to these city officials, often on the front line during the “yellow vests” crisis in 2018 or during the Covid-19 epidemic, and who are today facing a rise in tensions.

“I want to tell you the gratitude of the nation”, who “Will be by your side wherever there is a return of violence” against elected officials, he first launched to them, after the critical speeches of the new president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), David Lisnard (Les Républicains), and of his vice-president, André Laignel (Socialist Party). “I tried, where I was, to do what I said, and I believe I did. And I tried to adapt, like you moreover, to all the crises that we suffered, and we held on, and I thank you for that ”, he insisted.

“There may have been misunderstandings at the beginning, there may have been prejudices”, then launched Mr. Macron after a five-year term enamelled with tensions with the mayors. The atmosphere was less stormy than during his first intervention in 2017, where he had been whistled by elected officials. “I assume the fact of not having been mayor, he continued. This is how I am not the only president of the V^e Republic not to have been mayor. I understood that General de Gaulle was greatly honored, lately, he may have had the same fault. ”

A comparison criticized in the wake of the President of the Republicans party, Christian Jacob, on his Twitter account. “Emmanuel Macron, completely out of step with the reality and the concerns of the French and the mayors of France, he estimated. Between bitterness and arrogance, he locks himself in electoral incantations, pushing indecency to the point of comparing himself to General de Gaulle. “

The Head of State defends the abolition of the housing tax

In his speech, the Head of State then defended point by point his choices, from the abolition of the housing tax to actions in favor of “City hearts”, assuring once again that he had preserved the resources of the municipalities, one of the points of friction with the leaders of the AMF. “The housing tax was a tax for the middle classes, bad for small towns, unfair”, he pleaded, while David Lisnard had earlier denounced this deletion, claiming that it had been “The last step in the total destabilization of our local tax system”.

Emmanuel Macron also called to avoid debates “Deadly” which oppose the State to local elected officials. “The State is a whole, there cannot be the State vis-à-vis elected officials”, insisted the President of the Republic, who had received the day before a thousand elected officials at the Elysee Palace. The President of the Republic also recognized the “Contradictory injunctions” that mayors, like himself, suffer, admitting that some decisions are too far removed from the field and “Come down from above”. A way for him to respond to criticism from AMF leaders, who blamed him “Extreme centralization” of its decisions, that prefects and even ministers “Find out on television”.