Emmanuel Macron dreamed of being an apostle of the long term. At the time of running for a second term, the tenant of the Elysée wanted to give back to France the feeling of a “control of one’s destiny”, projecting the country into a promising future made of investments and progress. It was necessary to see the future at ten years and even beyond without fear or anguish. The ace ! The arrival of Russian tanks in Ukraine forces the Head of State to reconnect with the constraints of immediacy. And it is as a man in a hurry, jostled by a changing agenda and the dramatic news of a “War in Europe”in his words, that the President of the Republic went, Saturday, February 26, to the International Agricultural Show, at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center, in Paris.
Far from the fourteen hours spent in 2019 strolling among Saler cows or Savoy cheeses, the Head of State will have made an express visit of barely two hours to talk to an agricultural world worried by tensions. ongoing geopolitics. Before a defense council in the followingnoon and a phone call to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the early morning, the president will nevertheless have devoted part of his schedule to going to the “largest farm in France”, yielding to the political ritual.
The President of the Republic wanted to thank the farmers during the Fair supposed to seal “reunion” following two years of pandemic. “You held on”he welcomed, recalling the content of the messages previously disclosed to caregivers, on the “front line” of this health crisis. “You held on to feed the French nation, to continue to export too”he insisted.
“Resilience Plan”
But the Covid-19 page is not yet closed when a new, even more worrying front is opening, linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Faced with the agricultural world, but also with the rest of the country, the Head of State hardly sought to reassure or minimize the scope of the events. “War is returning to Europe and we see ourselves today in an unprecedented, serious and historic context”he let go, before delivering his “ conviction » : « this crisis will last.
A serious tone translating the return of tragedy predicted many times by the Head of State in a Europe accustomed to peace. A way, also, to underline the role incumbent on the President of the Republic. In August 2017, in an interview with PointEmmanuel Macron believed that “For too long, we have resigned ourselves to a democratic life without salt. We are paying the price for this collective stupidity which consists in believing in the end of History, when it is, on the contrary, coming back to us in the face. » To face it, he said, “we must reconnect with the political heroism specific to the republican world, rediscover the meaning of the historical narrative”.
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