Natacha Polony: "Macron and the benevolent amnesia of the media"

Don't you feel this new air, this freshness which makes France a desirable and dynamic country? The commentators this week competed in originality. We praise its "power of attraction", this way of "shaking off a torpor". A former Minister of the Economy seems to be telling us, like Jack Lang in May 1981, that “France has passed from shadow to light”. Europe too. Yes, even Europe, since Macron, “thinks spring”.

Those who believed that the role of the media in the democratic debate is to put things into perspective, to provide the intellectual and factual elements that make it possible to pierce the surface of events, are sweet utopians. Intelligence: from the Latin inter-ligere: to link things together (the imbecile says "I don't see the connection"). But it's been a long time since Latin was no longer required in the cursus honorum of the professional commentator. The time is in the sequence. One chases the other. The Jupiterian presidency drives out the electoral campaign, light drives out the shadow of populism, the celebration of Good drives out the general and compulsory mobilization against the bogeyman of Evil.

Thus, before, it was necessary to speak out against the risk of a rise in "protectionism" which would throw off decades of European construction. The candidate Macron celebrated the mobility of workers in Europe, from which the French benefited, and castigated the temptation of "withdrawal". Today, the President declares: “Europe is the only space which does not defend itself. I am not a protectionist but a defender of fair protection. Some would call this “intelligent protectionism”. Better still, in his first major interview with several European dailies, including Le Figaro , he launches: “We cannot continue to make Europe in offices, to let things fall apart. Posted work leads to ridiculous situations. Do you think I can explain to the French middle classes that companies are closing in France to go to Poland because it's cheaper and that in our country construction companies hire Poles because they are paid less? This system does not work straight.” Journalistic applause. So much the better! But we claim the right to wonder.

Similarly, before, it was necessary to condemn Bashar, the assassin of his people, and to denounce the autocrat Putin who kept him in power. Anyone who dared to suggest that France, if it wants to weigh, is not destined to align itself with the American hawks but must also discuss with the master of the Kremlin was considered by the editorialists as a "friend of dictators", a "fan of Putin and al-Assad. Candidate Macron was also worried about this dangerous "allegiance". Today, the president receives Putin and invites the Syrian president to the negotiating table without making Assad's departure a prerequisite because we "did not present (him) his legitimate successor!". Media admiration. So much the better! But we wonder.

That the president adopts a policy with accents close to those of a Védrine, a Chevènement or a Séguin, is rather reassuring. But journalistic amnesia is not. The same are passionate about the affairs of parliamentary assistants of the MoDem but were careful not to put their noses there when the only fight was against a FN whose dishonesty was demonstrated by… affairs of parliamentary assistants. The same discover an investigation for favoritism targeting Business France, an organization headed by the Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud. However, on March 8, LeCanard enchaîné published a small article on an evening at the French Tech Night in Las Vegas organized without a call for tenders for more than 380.000 euros in January 2016 by Havas and Business France to allow the Minister of the Economy to seduce – sorry, meet – French digital entrepreneurs. But the article just above, about a loan of 50 euros granted to Fillon by a friend, had mobilized their attention.

We will have fun with this “benevolent” amnesia. Especially if it allows a policy to be pursued that serves the interests of France and its middle and working classes. But a question remains. Is it possible to be brought to power without professing the Atlanticist and neoliberal dogmas which led the country to deindustrialization and the popular classes in the arms of the FN? And since a leader can hold a speech and its opposite, do these new accents combining regulation and fair diplomatic measure only serve to give pledges to the 60% of registered voters who voted blank or abstained during the second round? legislative? The economic-political system that has imposed free trade and technocratic governance for decades is quickly regaining its rights against the fighters of circumstance.