Five major topics for discussion have been listed: full employment, school, health, “ageing well” and ecological transition.
“Today we must invent something new, a new way of debating. Not a new institution,” sketched the head of state on Wednesday before the congress of the Mutualité française.
“Revitalize our democracy”, “work differently” with all the actors of the country, political forces, elected officials, unions, associations and citizens, “closer to the territories”: the roadmap, declined by the Elysée, is announced ambitious.
The Head of State will open the inaugural session at 9:30 a.m. in Marcoussis (Essonne) in the presence of around fifty participants representing “the living forces of the Nation” in the social, economic, political, associative, health and the environment.
The participants will then present their expectations and priorities, in a “long and very open dialogue”, after short presentations by the President of the High Council for the Climate, Corinne Le Quéré, the First President of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici and of the Governor of the Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau.
The Elysee Palace released a list of around fifty participants on Wednesday evening, including the boss of the CFDT Laurent Berger, that of the Medef Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, that of the CPME François Asselin, but also representatives of the main associations of elected officials, NGO leaders and a dozen ministers.
In the afternoon, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will chair a meeting to determine the projects and establish their implementation over time.
The place was not chosen at random: the CNR was launched… at the CNR, the National Rugby Center, a huge 20-hectare area where the French team trains, currently one of the best in the world. world.
And the acronym of this new body recalls that of the National Council of Resistance (CNR), which coordinated the various movements of the internal Resistance during the Second World War and drew up a list of reforms to be carried out at the Liberation.
But the exercise is already boycotted by the oppositions, who see it above all as a way for the president to circumvent Parliament, where his camp no longer has an absolute majority, to regain control in public debate.
– “The sulking will cease” –
The President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, refused to come, recalling that “representative democracy” is Parliament, and that there is already a “civil society forum” with the Economic, Social and Environmental Council ( Cesa).
Bruno Retailleau, leader of the LR senators, castigated “yet another government communication operation, which bypasses our institutions and adds confusion”.
Same observation on the left and on the far right: Alexis Corbière (LFI) denounces a “bazaar” to “dodge parliament”, Marine Le Pen (RN) a “gadget”, when Olivier Faure (PS) does not see it ” no interest”.
The ex-president François Hollande, never stingy with spades towards his successor, also doubts the need for a “new thing”, by taking up on his own account a formula of General de Gaulle about the UN.
On the majority side, the former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, retained by a congress in Quebec, will be the great absentee but will be represented.
The “bouderie will end fairly quickly” when certain issues, potentially “referendum”, will be on the table and that there will be “territorial variations of the CNRs”, however wants to believe a government official.
After Marcoussis, “the will is to go quickly”, indicates the Elysée. With “the very rapid start” of the first thematic projects, on school or health for example, so that they materialize “in 2023”.
The monitoring of the work is entrusted to the High Commissioner for Planning, François Bayrou, who provides the general secretariat of the CNR and who already concedes that the task promises to be “very difficult”.
