reproaches whatever his choice

Faced with the growing controversy concerning the absence of President Emmanuel Macron from the march against anti-Semitism which took place last week, the Secretary of State for Citizenship and the City, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, energetically defended the president’s position during his interview last Friday on Europe 1-CNews.

Sabrina Agresti-Roubache insists that the President’s main role is to “work for the release of the hostages”, specifying that “we cannot always ask everything and do everything and instruct everything with the President of the Republic (…) whatever he does, we would have blamed him for everything and its opposite. We still have hostages held by the Hamas terrorist group and the President of the Republic is working every day to free them.“.

A walk under high tension

The march against anti-Semitism, which brought together 105,000 people in Paris and more than 182,000 people across France, continued to make headlines a week after it was held. The absence of President Macron raised questions, in particular because of the controversial consultation of the comedian Yassine Belattar, former member of the Presidential Council of Cities.

Belattar, who was sentenced in September to a four-month suspended prison sentence for death threats and threats of crime against entertainers, reportedly recommended that the President refrain from participating in the march, alleging that it could provoke unrest in the neighborhoods. In the eyes of Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, this consultation with Belattar does not justify Macron’s absence.

The President, beyond the controversy

Sabrina Agresti-Roubache emphasizes that the president is more concerned about more serious global problems: “The President is not afraid to send this or that message. He is afraid for the fate of our hostages, he is afraid of the situation In the Near and Middle East, anti-Semitism is only the prelude to other hatreds… So (he tries) to preserve the unity of the nation.”

Whether the President’s absence from the march was a personal decision or a recommendation from Belattar’s advice, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache believes that Emmanuel Macron’s role remains, above all, to deal with major national issues, passing sometimes in addition to more local events, even if the latter can have a significant impact on public opinion.

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