Macron pays solemn tribute to Delors, “architect of united Europe”

The former president of the European Commission, father of the euro and ephemeral hope of the left in the 1995 French presidential election, died on December 27 at the age of 98.

The Head of State, who has already saluted the "inexhaustible architect of our Europe", has chosen to pay him a national tribute which begins at 11:00 a.m. in the Cour des Invalides in Paris in the presence of many European leaders. With an "innovation" brought to the republican rite, in connection with its continental aura: after the funeral eulogy of Emmanuel Macron, the bell tolls, the minute of silence and the Marseillaise, the Ode to Joy, the European anthem, performed by the Republican Guard orchestra, the Elysée announced on Thursday.

According to his entourage, the president will celebrate the role played by Jacques Delors on the French scene.

The social democrat had disappointed his camp by giving up running for the Elysée in 1995, after his two mandates in Brussels. But before that, he had left his mark on political life by walking with the social Gaullist Jacques Chaban-Delmas at the end of the 1960s and then by pushing with all his weight for France to remain in Europe in 1983, when he was minister of the Economy of the socialist president François Mitterrand.

One hundred Erasmus students

Emmanuel Macron should say that "France would not have remained a sovereign power in Europe as we know it today without Jacques Delors", explained an advisor to journalists. She “would undoubtedly be less in control of her destiny”.

In his wishes to the French on December 31, the president invoked his “heritage” to call for the “decisive choice” of a “stronger, more sovereign Europe” to be made in 2024.

To remember his “concrete achievements”, around a hundred students from the Erasmus program from all over Europe will be present at the tribute.

Even if it is not a question of transforming this tribute into a campaign platform, the speech of Emmanuel Macron, who regularly poses as the leader of the pro-European "progressives", should also resonate in the light of the elections European elections in June, while the far right is leading in the polls in France.

Especially since he will be in the presence of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of the leaders of the nationalist camp in Europe.

France invited all heads of state and government of the European Union, as well as the leaders of community institutions, current or in office while Jacques Delors was in Brussels from 1985 to 1995.

Around ten current leaders have confirmed their presence, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. The presidents of the European Council, Commission, Parliament and Central Bank are also expected, before a European tribute in Brussels later in January.

Everyone will then be received for lunch at the Elysée by Emmanuel Macron.

The mayor of Lille Martine Aubry, daughter of Jacques Delors, was closely involved in the preparations for the ceremony but will not speak, the presidency said.