President Emmanuel Macron presented Wednesday evening the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor to former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, hailing a certain "French temperament" and a lawyer from "France from below".
"What is honored through you is a certain French temperament. Provincial and global, cunning and sincere, hardworking and epicurean, peasant and traveler", he launched during the decoration ceremony at the Elysée Palace. .
"The road is straight but the slope is steep", the "France from below", the "positive attitude"... the Head of State lined up the "raffarinades", so many caustic expressions which distinguished the Prime Minister of Jacques Chirac between 2002 and 2005.
He hailed in passing his pension reform, "obtained with great struggle", as an echo of his own journey to impose one in turn and make it one of the markers of his second five-year term.
Emmanuel Macron also made extensive reference to Johnny Hallyday, Jean-Pierre Raffarin's idol, and his repertoire.
"Your efforts in preparation open the doors to you, not of the penitentiary, but of the ESCP", the Superior School of Commerce of Paris, he recalled. "For you life will begin," he continued.
Commercial at the roaster Jacques Vabre after school, "you see that for coffee as in melancholy, black is black", he said again.
After his career in the center-right, Jean-Pierre Raffarin joined Emmanuel Macron and became special representative of France in China in 2018, a country in which he has been interested for a long time. "You, the king of balance, were made for the Middle Empire", launched the head of state again.
02/22/2023 23:58:16 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
