DREW ANGERER/Getty Images via AFP
From the US, Macron (here in the White House on December 1st) sends his messages to the Europeans
POLITICS – From New Orleans to Brussels (with love). Emmanuel Macron gave an interview of about twenty minutes to TF1 this Saturday, December 3, before returning to France after a short four-day vacation in the United States. Ahead of his Friday in Louisiana, the President of the Republic spent two days in Washington on a lavish state visit offered by Joe Biden.
The opportunity to exchange gifts, courtesy… but also some disagreements about America’s huge Industrial Assistance Plan (IRA). In other words, a policy that is so protectionist that it penalizes European companies. So much so that the file was placed at the top of the list of the most sensitive issues of this diplomatic moment… For more than encouraging results, according to Emmanuel Macron.
“The visit has met the expectations we had set for ourselves,” said the President of the Republic in this interview broadcast in the 1 p.m. newspaper on the front page, without announcing any concrete developments, such as possible “exceptions”, but increasing them Pressure on European colleagues.
” We must not ask America to solve our problems »
He was pleased to have “put his feet in the bowl” to his American counterpart on the subject of the new “rules for the development of green industry on American soil, which are about to do great harm”, “it is difficult to get into from the speech of the French President not to recognize his many messages to the heads of state and government of the EU.
“We Europeans must become more efficient. We must not ask the United States of America to solve our problems,” argued the head of state, for example as you can see below. “We have to get faster. We have made many decisions as Europeans, but we take much more time to review the files and provide assistance. Secondly, we need to reinvest more. “And to insist, ‘That’s the other element of the answer that depends on us.’ »
🗣 @EmmanuelMacron on his state visit to the United States: “The first goal was to wake up. We made it. The second was… https://t.co/uVk0BB1qtR
— TF1Info (@TF1Info)
Specifically, Paris, along with other European countries, wants to promote the introduction of a commercial weapon that is similar in outline to the American plan. A “Buy European Act” that would also give priority to products manufactured on the old continent. “Fundamentally, Europe must prove its suitability for this competition,” the Elysée summed up to journalists before the President’s visit to the United States.
This Saturday, Emmanuel Macron emphasized several key areas, “sectors of the future”, such as hydrogen, the manufacture of batteries and their components, artificial intelligence or semiconductors. “We still have a lot more to do. We have to get even faster,” he repeated.
Are exceptions to be expected?
It is clear that the President of the Republic has been more cautious about the adjustments that the United States could expect to make to its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). “Discussions are ongoing” about exceptions and the idea of making some of our products “eligible,” he said, looking forward to TF1 and insisting he’s most importantly “successful” in “waking up” to the perverted effects of this American plan.
“Now everyone’s talking about it, it’s a good thing,” he said hours earlier during a tour of New Orleans, after saying he wanted the question of “exceptions » to be “clarified” by the first quarter of 2023. “For me, by early next year, we need to be able to wrap up this issue,” “we need to wrap up on these issues,” he told the press the day after his meeting with his counterpart in Washington.
On the American side, Joe Biden said he was willing to correct certain “deficiencies” in his law, but he defended this tooth and nail without citing exceptions or citing any concessions to technical works. A very wintry nervousness… And what undoubtedly explains Emmanuel Macron’s offensive and optimistic message in relation to his European partners.
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