In his latest attempt to calm the raging storm of protest shaking France and hang onto power, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a "national debate" with town-hall meetings around the country.
As reported by France24:
French President Emmanuel Macron tried to assuage the anger of Yellow Vest protesters and others as he launches his proposed "national debate" with a speech in the northern town of Grand Bourgtheroulde on Tuesday.
Macron hopes that by introducing a more inclusive, participatory style of governing he can take some of the anger out of the Yellow Vest movement. In an open letter to the French citizenry on Sunday, Macron listed more than 30 questions to be put to a "grand national debate" and said he hoped as many citizens as possible would participate in Town Hall-style gatherings across the country.
"We won't agree on everything, that's normal, that's democracy," he said in his letter. "But at least we'll show we are a people who are not afraid to talk, exchange and debate."
The meeting in Grand Bourgtheroulde kicked off two months of public consultations in towns and villages across the country on four main themes: taxation, France's transition to a low-carbon economy, democracy and citizenship, and the functioning of the state and public services.
So, what will be the contents of these debates? The Daily Telegraph offers some additional details:
This is an obvious ploy by the deeply unpopular Macron to distract people from the real issues, which are how many minutes should he take to resign and which window of the Presidential Palace he should be thrown through on his way out.
The two months of debates across the country are intended to air the grievances of the “yellow vests” and identify remedies to defuse widespread public anger over living standards behind nine consecutive weekends of protests and clashes with police in French cities.
Cutting immigration has not been a central demand of the populist revolt but about 40 per cent of “yellow vests” are estimated to support Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration party, the far-Right National Rally.
The 41-year-old president’s controversial move to consider quotas for non-EU immigration is seen as an effort to reach out to far Right voters.
Nicolas Bay, a National Rally MEP, rejected the idea, saying: “Why raise the question of quotas when many people want no immigration at all?”
This is an obvious ploy by the deeply unpopular Macron to distract people from the real issues, which are how many minutes should he take to resign and which window of the Presidential Palace he should be thrown through on his way out.
Macron hopes that these small, pointless meetings across the country will get activists arguing with each other and dissipating their revolutionary energies so that he can keep on doing this:
And this:
