There was indeed a cross, clean and neat, affixed to Emmanuel Macron’s diary. To believe, in any case, his oldest ally, the man with multiple hats, François Bayrou. The boss of the Modem, who is not the last to secure the places of his lieutenants in the government or to go out of his hinges when he considers that he is not being properly served, had warned part of his inner circle there is that a few weeks: the President of the Republic had given him to understand that he would reorganize his team between his official trip to Germany and his departure for the NATO summit in Vilnius (Lithuania).
Either… Last weekend, at the twilight of the famous “hundred days”, before addressing the French on July 14. “It was an option, yes”, confirms in half a word an ex of the Castle and regular interlocutor of the Head of State, while a member of the government described, in the middle of June, “the annoyance of the president towards some of his ministers, in particular in the Council on Wednesday morning, which leaves little doubt about his intention to move quickly”.
Only here, the last minute unforeseen are the worst enemies of procrastinators. Even more when they plunge the country into a crisis that it had not known for almost twenty years. The death of young Nahel and the nights of riots it caused forced the tenant of the Elysée to change his plans, he who must now, and as a priority, get down to finding the right tone to draw the conclusions. of these incidents. “The risk of a reshuffle today is that it appears, in the eyes of the French, as a response to the events that have just occurred, when we know well that the motivations are prior”, slips-t -on in the entourage of Emmanuel Macron. “He was supposed to redesign before July 14, but you can’t change course in this kind of moment, especially since it can degenerate again overnight,” explains a full-time minister, sure of himself.
However, the episode is far from having erased the limits of the team led by Elisabeth Borne. Some, like the Minister of Cities and Housing Olivier Klein – once is not custom on the front line in this eruptive context –, lost even more feathers by failing to seize their moment to shine. A Macronist leader close to the president sums up the whole issue of the government overhaul: “The observation that we made remains the same. Before Nanterre, the question was: do we have a political system that lasts twelve months, until to the Europeans? We don’t know how to manage a motion of censure, so we need a governmental architecture that allows us to do so. That was our subject.”
“Colleagues would see themselves in my place”
These are the same large portfolios that have been targeted for several months: Pap Ndiaye in Education and the so-called “social” ministers, François Braun in Health and Jean-Christophe Combe in Solidarity. And, even by ardently exploring the depths of Macronie, we no longer find a living soul, among the members of the government and parliamentarians, to still support the Secretary of State in charge of the Social and Solidarity Economy and Associative Life Marlène Schiappa, crushed by the Senate commission of inquiry into the allocation of the Marianne fund. “We will have to try to bring in at least two or three strong personalities to flesh out all this”, plead in chorus several ministers, without however being able to put names on these more than expected profiles.
Even if the hypothesis of a reshuffle before the day of the national holiday now seems unlikely, Emmanuel Macron, by giving an appointment to the French this Friday, had time to put all his little world in tension. It must be said that the period is conducive to procrastination and questioning: some of them in the government describe a “false dish” which has lasted too long, noting in passing that the arbitrations of Matignon are being made more and more rarer, especially since the start of the riots. A minister who is bored is a minister who trembles; or, for the more confident, who flaunts his ambitions. Government spokesman Olivier Véran no longer even hides his desire to replace Pap Ndiaye rue de Grenelle, or Olivier Dussopt at Work. According to some of his comrades, the current Secretary of State for Youth and Universal National Service Sarah El Haïry – partly under the tutelage of Ndiaye – would also be ready to obtain the same promotion in Education, winning tender smiles even within his political family… The teams change but the reflexes persist: on the eve of a reshuffle, the season for nudging is open: “I have been told of the kindness of a few colleagues who would see themselves well at my one of the few faces known to the government slips into a laugh. At the same time, I was able to read the notes of certain parliamentarians explaining what they would do well in my position, and especially what they would do better than Me.” As a good manager, Emmanuel Macron should know that this little game cannot last indefinitely…
The hypothesis of a departure from Borne is moving away
Obviously, at the Palais-Bourbon too, the possible opening of a few positions within the government is making people intoxicated. With each change of team, Emmanuel Macron has got into the habit of rewarding a few good elements of the majority and, as the train does not pass a hundred times, you might as well put the odds on his side by staying under the radar. At the MoDem – where we have a hard-to-negotiate minister’s quota – several deputies have called, written to the number two of the party and Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau, just to assert their qualities. A sign that the elected officials are “in spinning top”, says an employee of a pillar of the Renaissance group, an article in the Parisian rrevealing that several Macronist deputies had been “tested” before the riots created a wind, or rather a tornado, of curiosity mixed with a hint of jealousy in the Assembly. Who ? When ? Or ? We no longer count the messages exchanged between colleagues or sent to their parliamentary attachés to try to find out who the lucky ones are or to find out more about the date of the reshuffle.
In this boiling ecosystem, one element seems more and more stable (until it is no longer so): Elisabeth Borne. Over these hundred days, the Prime Minister seemed to cling to her post and “even if she printed less than Gérald Darmanin and Eric Dupond-Moretti during the riots, she did not make any major fault”, estimates a close friend of Emmanuel Macron. Accustomed to having to regularly reaffirm her desire to stay at Matignon, the head of government insisted on doing it again this weekend, in an interview with the Parisian “I have a roadmap, I deliver and I stick to it,” she told the daily.
For the time being, few are those at the heart of power to bet on his departure: “If a motion of censure passes in the fall on the Budget, it will be complicated for Emmanuel Macron not to return to the polls and not to change of Prime Minister, believes a member of the government. If there were obvious evidence (sic) to replace her, it would already have been done, except that there is none, so he procrastinates … ” Which does not is not the case, nor the kind of Elisabeth Borne. No doubt confident about her future maintenance, the Prime Minister is currently organizing meetings “without agenda” with several of her ministers, not mentioned on the agenda, for what furiously resembles a staff review. …