Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron had only spoken once on National Day: it was in 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 health crisis. While a political crisis is brewing, the President of the Republic speaks this Thursday, July 14 in front of the French, worried about the decline in purchasing power and the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
Emmanuel Macron spoke of the new military programming law, which should make it possible to adapt the French army to the new geopolitical context, marked by the return of war to the gates of Europe. “We will intensify the effort and produce military equipment more quickly,” the president said. According to him, the war in Ukraine will continue for a long time. “We must all be prepared for it to last. Summer and the beginning of autumn will undoubtedly be very hard”, because of Russia’s determination to take Donbass, said the head of the State.
In this context, the increase in energy prices follows logically, especially since Russia seems to be using gas as a weapon of war. “We must prepare for a scenario where we will have to do without Russian gas”, estimated Emmanuel Macron, who calls for the general mobilization of the States. While not very dependent on Russian gas, France will continue to secure volumes of gas elsewhere than in Russia, for example in Qatar or Algeria.
The President of the Republic also announced that he was going to ask for the preparation of a plan to reduce energy consumption. The state will prepare this summer “an energy sobriety plan”, to face the risk of shortage linked to the war in Ukraine. “We must collectively enter into a logic of sobriety”, “we will prepare a plan to put ourselves in a position to consume less”, declared Emmanuel Macron. “We are going to try to pay attention collectively in the evening to the lights which are useless, we are going to make a plan for the public administrations, we are going to make a sobriety plan”, he specified.
