Cindi Cook
07 January 2022•Update: 07 January 2022
PARIS
France’s President Emmanuel Macron welcomed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen along with European commissioners in Paris on Friday to mark the start of the French presidency of the Council of the European Union.
With the turn of the new year, France has assumed the rotating presidency of the Council from Germany for the next six months.
Macron and von der Leyen started the ceremony at the Pantheon, the monument which serves as a burial place for France’s greatest leaders in politics, the humanities, the arts, and defense. The chosen location doubled for the occasion as a tribute to two French citizens buried there who were giants of European magnanimity: Jean Monnet, the diplomat, financier, and political visionary credited with the EU’s foundations; and Simone Weil, one of France’s leading intellectuals and political activists, and a former president of the European Parliament.
A press conference followed at the Elysee Palace where the two leaders covered a variety of issues, including climate and environment, digital future, immigration, border security, and defense, and COVID-19.
Environment topped Macron’s agenda, with the president not neglecting individual residences while speaking on the need for “a carbon-free society” when it came to reforming the nation’s transport and electrical systems.
His digital agenda too had a grander focus, in its aim to better regulate “both the market and the content.”
The president spoke at length on the need for “important texts for decent wages and gender equality in pay,” an issue raised time and again during his administration.
The need for strong borders and defense is also a top priority that both Macron and von der Leyen share.
The two leaders also acknowledged the unfolding crisis in Kazakhstan, as well as announcing discussions starting on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including the situation in Ukraine at its border. The two countries have been fraught with tension in the past few weeks as Russia has amassed over 100,000 troops there for a possible invasion.
For her part, von der Leyen was pleased to see France take its leadership role.
“I am delighted that a country with the political weight and the experience of France is assuming the presidency of the Council at such a delicate moment,” she said. “France’s voice is loud and clear. France has Europe at heart.”
She expounded upon Macron’s remarks on the need for attention to climate change, highlighting the recently passed resolution for a reduction by 55% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Von der Leyen was in equal agreement with keeping borders safe and maintaining a strong defense, as well as upping Europe’s position in the digital marketplace.
“Our common ambition is to make Europe a real digital power in the world, shaped according to our own rules and our own values. All this should contribute to a new model of European growth,” she said.
Macron’s agenda is particularly ambitious, but it is to be noted in light of the fact that he is up for re-election this April and the short term of the recent role.
On the subject of his remarks to French newspaper Le Parisien on Wednesday regarding those who remain unvaccinated -- saying “I really want to piss them off … until the end” -- Macron fully assumed responsibility but did not let up on his voraciousness.
“The concept of freedom, brandished by some of our compatriots to invoke the freedom not to be vaccinated, stops where the freedom of the other is hampered, where the life of the other can be endangered,” he said in response to a journalist who pressed him on the subject.
“When some make their freedom -- which becomes irresponsibility -- their slogan not only endangers the lives of others, but restricts the freedom of others, and that I cannot accept.”
