In the Council of Ministers, whether it rains, whether it snows, whether the sun shines, they are seated face to face. They are the two heads of the executive and, this Tuesday, there was a storm warning. Emmanuel Macron begins by talking about the Cannes Film Festival, the weather was nice on the Croisette, thank you. The president recalls, after his Minister of Culture, who did so immediately after the speech of the palme d’or, that the regions and the State largely finance the cinema. “It’s not impossible that a certain number of our French stars are accommodated in large hotels at the expense of the princess,” he says in passing. He will never find anyone around the table to be moved by the meaning of the presidential formula. At this moment, Macronie is still united.
Then the Head of State evokes the RN. As The Parisian And Le Figaro revealed it, Emmanuel Macron launches that “the fight against the far right no longer passes through moral arguments”. “You will not be able to make millions of French people who voted for the extreme right believe that they are fascists”, adds the president. Hello, Uncle? Why are you coughing? In front of him, Elisabeth Borne remains “impassive”, according to a present. On Sunday, on Radio J, she declared that the National Rally was “the heir of Pétain” and the bearer of a “dangerous ideology”. And judged that “we must not trivialize our ideas [qui] are always the same”.
The blow in the stomach is of a rare violence in the history of the Fifth Republic. Admittedly, during the various cohabitations, it has happened that the president, in the presence of his Prime Minister from a camp opposed to his, stands out, makes his differences heard, marks his territory by expressing his “reservations”. But the political situation this time has nothing to do: Elisabeth Borne is only there, opposite Emmanuel Macron, because the latter decided so a year ago. And when, in 1991, in the minutes preceding a Council of Ministers, François Mitterrand informed Michel Rocard that he had to resign, the members of the government knew nothing about it in the process. “No, it’s not about [le gouvernement]“, had dared to say Mitterrand. In the Murat salon, stabs are not welcome.
If you wanted proof that she is viscerally on the left, and that he is not, here it is. The same morning, Le Figaro, in an editorial with a knife, denounced “the counter-productive impact of a historical scarecrow worn out by dint of having served”. Some ministers from the PS have also watered down the incident.
The president “puts pressure back in the tube”
But the subject quickly pierced the walls of the Elysée and the ideal culprits do not even have ringing ears. “Gérald was not there, Bruno either”, laughs a minister. No, it was neither Darmanin, visiting New Caledonia, nor Le Maire, traveling to Pas-de-Calais to inaugurate the first French electric battery factory, who swayed…
If we wanted proof that Emmanuel Macron at times definitely does not understand how Elisabeth Borne works or reasons, here it is. In the middle of the “hundred days”, the president knows what he is doing, he also spends his time destabilizing his own troops, even his followers recognize him for having been, too, victims of such behavior. “He puts pressure back in the tube to go against the papers which say that she will stay, that this is no longer a subject, confides a minister. He likes to keep people under tension.”
The result is however troubling: that the National Rally invites itself in the middle of the Council of Ministers to sow discord in the heart of the executive couple is not necessarily a very good omen.