what Michel Barnier proposed in 2021 | EUROtoday

Strict immigration management, retirement at 65, battle towards“assistance” : throughout his marketing campaign for the first of the best in 2021, the brand new Prime Minister (Les Républicains) Michel Barnier had defended a liberal financial coverage coupled with nice firmness within the sovereign areas. He who defines himself as a “social Gaullist” had completed third on this major, gained by Valérie Pécresse. Here is a abstract of the positions he had introduced then.

Immigration

The former European Commissioner had defended very agency positions on immigration and safety: “We can't repair anything, we can't build anything without security and if it's the smugglers and the judges who decide who can enter France and who can stay there”he mentioned to the Figaro in November 2021.

Mr Barnier due to this fact proposed a “moratorium” on immigration from three to 5 years: this ” break “ can be a “prerequisite to taking back control of our migration policy”he defined. With this in thoughts, the candidate wished “stop unconditional regularization of undocumented immigrants”, “speed up the asylum seeker’s journey”tighten the standards for household reunification and scale back the issuing of long-stay visas.

He had additionally shocked, even shocked, even his personal camp by advocating a referendum to permit a return to “freedom of maneuver” on immigration, suggesting that France ought to free itself from the principles assured by the authorized authorities of the European Union and the Council of Europe. Criticized, the individual involved had castigated “cry of alarm” and a “unhealthy controversy”and maintained that in issues of immigration, “If we don't change anything, there will be other Brexits”.

Economy and finance

The candidate for the 2022 presidential election promised on the time a “strict savings trajectory” for the state finances and a “debt control”. To stimulate the “return to work and activity, (…) key to growth »he recommended reducing production taxes by 10 billion euros, and lowering social charges on intermediate salaries, from 1.6 to 2.5 times the minimum wage – while planning to increase salaries in the “essential public services of health and education”.

Follower of “brave reforms”Mr. Barnier suggested “retirement at 65” and a “larger state effectivity” and local authorities, “specifically to eradicate all our administrative duplicates”.

Social

Reciting a classic right-wing mantra, the former minister said he wanted “encourage work and advantage, to the detriment of welfare”in particular by suspending unemployment benefits “after two refusals of an affordable provide”. He also declared himself “way more involved” of social dialogue than President Macron.

Mr Barnier also said he wanted to combat social fraud, particularly in health insurance, and proposed to do this by replacing all Vitale cards with biometric cards in order to:“save appreciable sums” by deleting one “an actual nest of fraud”.

Environment

“We will scale back agricultural air pollution with farmers, not towards them. We will decarbonize the economic system with companies, not towards them.”said the former minister, who proposed a “main nationwide plan for housing insulation”Mr Barnier also said he wanted ” relaunch “ nuclear and investing in renewable energies, such as photovoltaics, biomass, hydraulics – but not wind power “which does numerous harm”.