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Macron seeks to revive presidency with plans for schools, parents and healthcare

French President Emmanuel Macron held a mammoth press conference on Tuesday evening in which he announced a pilot scheme for uniforms in French schools, a new form of parental leave, a national strategy to tackle infertility, tax cuts and more.

Published: 16 January 2024 22:21 CET
Updated: 17 January 2024 09:08 CET

Macron seeks to revive presidency with plans for schools, parents and healthcare

France's President Emmanuel Macron at a press conference to present the course for France's newly appointed government at The Elysee Palace in Paris on January 16, 2024. Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

Macron held the press conference at the Elysée Palace with around 200 journalists for more than two and a half hours.

He tackled everything from education to immigration, healthcare, the president’s new government and the response to the riots that rocked France last summer.

“I am convinced that we have the basis to succeed,” said Macron, telling reporters gathered under the chandeliers of the presidential Palace “our children will live better tomorrow, than we live today”.

Watched by his new cabinet team, Macron announced what he described as a “civic rearmament”, saying that “every generation of French people must learn what the Republic means”.

“France will be stronger… if we are more united, if we re-learn to share values, a common culture, respect in classroom, in the street, in public transport and in shops,” he said.

Among the concrete measures announced were a school uniform trial at around 100 educational institutions with a view to making the measure compulsory nationwide if it is successful. Although the trial was initially announced last December.

“School uniforms – which erase inequality between families and at the same time create conditions for respect – will be tried out from this year in around 100 schools on a volunteer basis,” he told journalists.

If the experiment shows positive results, compulsory school uniforms will be implemented nationwide in 2026, he told the news conference aimed at revitalising his second term in office.

Uniforms have never been compulsory in all state schools in mainland France.

First Lady Brigitte Macron, a former drama teacher, has backed the introduction of school uniforms.

Macron said he would be in favour of ensuring all children learn the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise”, from primary school.

The president said he hoped to make drama mandatory in school from next September “because it creates confidence, teaches public speaking and contact with great texts”.

Entering even into the daily lives of families, he announced that he wanted to “regulate the use of screens among young children”, although it was not immediately clear how this would be implemented.

Macron also promised order, by “better controlling our borders, by fighting against uncivilised behaviour with a doubling of the police presence in our streets, by fighting against drugs, by fighting against radical Islam.”

With new figures showing France’s birthrate has fallen to its lowest level since World War Two, Macron also announced a change to parental leave, which would see the creation of a new “birth leave” (congé de naissance).

The new form of leave would allow both parents to take time off for 6 months and it would be better paid than the current parental leave allowance, Macron said.

The president also announced the creation of a “national scheme to tackle infertility”.

“France will be stronger with the revival of its birthrate,” Macron said.

In other measures Macron confirmed €2 billion worth of tax cuts for the middles classes from 2025 that he had already promised last spring, the regularisation of foreign doctors to help with the shortage and more police operations to tackle drug dealing.

He also suggested the government would move towards introducing “generalised” universal national service for 15 and 16 year-olds, without giving more precise details and a desire for more labour market reforms aimed at achieving his aim of full employment for the country.

On international affairs Macron said France “must not let Russia win in Ukraine… because Europe’s own security would be in doubt.” He announced that France would deliver to Ukraine a new batch of some 40 SCALP long-range cruise missiles as well as hundreds of bombs.

The live press conference was the first time that Macron has answered questions since the appointment of his new prime minister on January 9th – Gabriel Attal, 34, became France’s youngest-ever prime minister last week.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.