Olivier Véran on the RN: “These people are dangerous”

Olivier Véran did not want to leave his post as government spokesperson. The reshuffle orchestrated by Gabriel Attal on January 11 forced him to do so. For a week, the former Minister of Health has been sitting in the chamber again - like eight other former members of the government. This Saturday, in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien, the Isère MP expressed his relief at now having “total freedom of speech and action” which will allow him to return to his doctor's coat one day. per week and to “reopen” his “mouth”.

That is to say, to criticize government policy. By specifying “in difference, but not distrust”. If he is not angry with the current power - he welcomes the Universal National Service (SNU) and the school uniform as "a form of transcendence in the nation" - Véran nevertheless expresses a desire for change. Back in time. Towards the fundamentals of macronism. The “overcoming” of the political divide in the service of the “general interest.”

For the former Minister of Health, the promise of “overcoming”, a mixture of right and left, was not kept. While “the values ​​of social democracy remain very much alive”, right-wing values ​​have gained too much weight in current government policy. As a deputy, Véran intends to speak “to those of our fellow citizens whose hearts still beat on the left and who feel stateless: neither Mélenchonistes, nor more totally Macronists”. In his eyes, this “humanist, secular, republican, Europhile center-left” electorate was not respected as much as it should have been. An allusion (in particular) to the immigration law which Véran regrets could have generated a “discourse (...) giving credence to the idea that foreigners could in themselves be a problem”. “We must not forget that the cardinal value by far remains solidarity,” he said.

Does the elected official (in 2017 then re-elected in 2022) harbor the ambition of being a candidate for the European elections? He eliminates the hypothesis. “The only thing that matters to me is that we return to the countryside without delay, and with a clear line.” Regarding the 2027 presidential election, he is more talkative, saying he believes in a possible shift of the country towards the center left. “Remember 2012 and François Hollande’s lightning victory. It's going so fast. Above all, I feel, among the French, a desire for freedom, progress, and modernity.”

Faced with this desire for progress and modernity that he detects, Véran identifies an enemy to fight with more force: the RN. He warns his political camp against its “certainties” and warns; “despite our good record, Marine le Pen is given the lead in the first round. (...) I went to all the towns managed by the RN, these people are dangerous. We have to say it and show it.”