He did so, he says, to create jobs. And when it comes to creating work, sometimes to the detriment of other assets, Emmanuel Macron is not idle! Evidenced, in fact, the new case which it may be the subject. The “Uber files”, which part of the opposition does not hesitate to present as a real state scandal, overshadow the President of the Republic, a few months after his re-election, in April 2022. He he is accused of having worked, while he was Minister of the Economy in the government of Manuel Valls, to the good establishment of Uber on French soil.
“We have opened thousands of jobs”, estimated the tenant of the Elysée, during the traditional interview of July 14, given live from the gardens of the presidential palace, indicates Sud-Ouest on its site. Unfortunately, such a maneuver mechanically led to a deregulation of the market, informs Le Monde. However, the criticisms made of the head of state do not stop there. For the left, this affair illustrates the ideal world as allegedly seen by the majority: a “worker’s society without rights, the breaking of the Labor Code”, thus affirmed the NUPES deputy from Paris Daniel Simonnet.
If the President of the Republic nonchalantly swept aside the accusations made by his opposition, it is clear that the latter are repeated, follow one another, follow one another. This is not the first time, in fact, that the summer of the head of state has been turned upside down. Before the “Uber files”, there was the Rugy affair but also the Benalla affair…
The first of these two cases, recalls France Inter, was built around the person of François de Rugy, former President of the National Assembly and Minister for Ecological and Solidarity Transition at the time of the discovery of the facts. An article by Mediapart, published on July 10, 2019, reports on the astonishing lifestyle of the former head of parliament. At the Hotel de Lassay, the official residence that goes with the Perchoir, he organizes luxurious overpriced dinners with certain important figures in the media landscape or also, sometimes, with lobbies. Problem ? Such events were potentially funded by the taxpayer.
The Benalla affair, for its part, seems difficult to forget. On May 1, 2018, Alexandre Benalla was filmed beating protesters at Place de la Contrescarpe in Paris. This close collaborator of Emmanuel Macron, recalls Ouest-France, is then accused of having usurped the function of police officer. The prosecution opened an investigation and Parliament wasted no time in also taking up the case. In 2021, he was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended, but appealed.
How to explain such a succession of business from summer to summer? For Christophe Bouillaud, teacher and researcher in political science at the IEP (Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Sciences-Po) in Grenoble, the answer is clear: it lies in the methodology of conquest of power implemented in 2016. Explanation.
“I am not convinced that one can speak of a curse of the summer. If such cases emerge at this time rather than at another, it is in my opinion the pure coincidence of the calendar or the possible tendency of the press to treat such news more attentively, for lack of anything else to get your teeth into”, first tempers the academic, for whom it remains important to look into the multiplication of such events. “In my opinion, all this is explained by the way in which the president worked to conquer power in 2016. He went through it in force, even if it meant sometimes approaching the limits of the legal and did not hesitate to surround himself of characters with an adventurous character”, judges the teacher-researcher.
Should we therefore think that the seriousness of the cases observed will increase? Not necessarily, underlines Christophe Bouillaud. “The Rugy affair is, in my opinion, a bad choice of political personnel. The Uber files are very consistent, on the ideological level, with the positioning of Emmanuel Macron. The President considers that the State must put itself at the service of companies, including when it comes to defending the capitalistic interests of non-French companies. Such a posture does not quite correspond to that of the French population, so it has to advance like a crab. After all, this was done to the detriment of French workers who, for the most part, paid their taxes…”, he observes, not without recalling the consequent impact of the defense of this type of interest on the vote. “It is in the regions where the large foreign groups are replacing the old French companies the most that we observe the most significant breakthroughs of the far right and the National Rally.
And he points out the other aspect of such an operation: it constitutes the preamble to the pure and simple betrayal of François Hollande by his former Secretary of State. “It is a very banal, ordinary and therefore morally abject betrayal. But François Hollande will never be able to say it, except to publicly accept having been duped”, he believes.
According to him, it is indeed the Benalla affair which appears to be the most serious of these three examples. “It constitutes – or, in any case, could have constituted – the embryo of a possible dark cabinet at the Elysée. Who knows what Alexandre Benalla could have been led to commit, if he had not been put out of harm’s way? Certain aspects of this affair could even have been a matter of endangering national defense”, insists Christophe Bouillaud, in reference to the contract signed by the former security officer of Emmanuel Macron and the Russian oligarchs. A corruption investigation has been opened, says France Info.
Faced with such criticism of Uber files, Emmanuel Macron decided to paraphrase Jacques Chirac. “Very sincerely, as one of my predecessors said, it touches me one without moving the other”, he thus declared in front of the microphones of BFMTV. This is enough to illustrate, if some still doubted it, the feeling of impunity that the President of the Republic seems to enjoy.
“Emmanuel Macron’s feeling of impunity is as complete as it is undeniable… And this is not particularly surprising. From a strict legal point of view, he risks nothing as long as he is still in office. It should also be remembered that in France, prosecutors depend on the Ministry of Justice and that it enjoys the full support of its political party”, underlines Christophe Bouillaud. However, it should also be noted that public opinion can also count in politics.
Again, judges the researcher, Emmanuel Macron is not threatened. “Such cases are too abstract to endanger him. For the main part of the French and the French they come to feed a feeling of all-rotten, but that would not be enough to put it in lasting difficulty”, he judges.