On Thursday March 7, Emmanuel Macron had lunch with Maia Sandu, President of the Republic of Moldova. The meeting appears on the official agenda. But it is his dinner of the day, not announced, which will launch the time of rumors. Gérard Larcher came at the request of the Head of State, who put his feet in the dish: “Would you be ready to go to Matignon?” Correction: Emmanuel Macron is just putting a toe in the dish, he says things without saying them. And Gérard Larcher was not born in the last rain, he has not forgotten that Catherine Vautrin was named then denominated, and that Gerald Darmanin almost took the same path. To the president, he repeats what he has already had the opportunity to say to him: “You will need us.”
Nevertheless, since that evening, the President of the Senate has been wondering: what is Emmanuel Macron playing at? This question masks another: ultimately, is it even possible to govern with this head of state? “Do you think he is sincere?”, asks Gérard Larcher of his interlocutors. Gérard Larcher is sincere when he considers that France, on the edge of the precipice, cannot afford three years of inaction due to lack of an absolute majority in the Assembly. All under the gaze of a National Rally at the gates of power. Which politician has never dreamed of de Gaulle? Protecting the country from the clutches of the far right? When he exchanges with Xavier Bertrand At the end of April, he was not unhappy to hear the president of the Hauts-de-France region explain to him that he was on a different “trajectory” than that of Matignon.
Interview with Richard Ferrand
But he does not want to be taken around, manipulated, exploited, he is the second figure in the State. On March 20, during the ceremony paying tribute to Philippe de Gaulle at the Invalides, he met Richard Ferrand, whom he knew well when the latter was President of the National Assembly and who is among Emmanuel Macron’s followers: ” Let’s see you!” A month later, the two men talk for an hour.
Gérard Larcher doubts Emmanuel Macron? This is good, the converse is true. At the Elysée, we twist our hair to understand a recent interview given by the senator to La Tribune Sunday. He undermines government policy, threatens a motion of censure, but does not rule out becoming coalition Prime Minister. “These decisions belong to the President of the Republic and no one else,” he evades. Simple “institutional consideration”, emphasize those close to him. A slap and an outstretched hand. “It’s his at the same time,” laughs a minister.
There is no contradiction here. More like lace work. The head of the Senate has deep differences with Emmanuel Macron. He hardly likes his practice of power, just like his disinterest in the deterioration of public finances. In private, as in public, he threatens to give up. “If your 2025 budget is like that of 2024, then you are taking a major risk of accident,” he slips to Gabriel Attal during a meeting. The elected official from Yvelines appreciates the young head of government. Those around them have fun drawing up Emmanuel Macron’s assessment together, like an Excel table, in intense discussions.
“Larcher would not come as a puppet”
Since we tell you, he is not a Macronist. So please don’t pretend that he’s offering services. “Gérard has no boss, he is in the top 3 of the Republic, he is happy where he is, notes a friend. Afterwards, if he can make his contribution and the political line changes, I think that ‘it’s available for.” But not under any conditions. “Larcher would not come as a poster boy. And if Macron appoints him, it is because he is cornered,” notes a recent interlocutor of Larcher. “By raising the threat of censorship, Larcher substitutes a balance of power for a relationship of institutional cordiality,” notes an early Macronist.
Quite quietly, a standoff is emerging. The elected official from Yvelines is not an avatar of Elisabeth Borne, a simple technocrat responsible for “delivering”, in Macronist Newspeak. The president likes docile heads of government, which is their primary quality. This shows the extent to which he would have to force himself to choose him. So the two men sniff each other, but no one makes the first move. Entering the negotiation first means having every chance of losing it. Unfathomable Larcher? “I have difficulty knowing what he thinks,” notes a minister. LR deputies say to me: “What do you think?”” Let them ask Elisabeth Borne! The Calvados MP is not splitting hairs. On September 28, 2023, then Prime Minister, she went to Saint-Malo to the Congress of the Regions. On the TGV which takes her to Brittany, she begins a friendly exchange with the President of the Senate. Too friendly perhaps. She then slips to her Minister of the Sea Hervé Berville: “Larcher, he is really campaigning to take my place.”
‘Ciotti feels he wants to go’
Eric Ciotti is not far from thinking the same thing. From the interview with Gérard Larcher, the boss of the Republicans mainly retains his allusive formula on Matignon. “He feels that he wants to go there,” notes an interlocutor from Nice. And then there are these disturbing silences. The President of the Senate did not speak to the boss of LR about his dinner with Emmanuel Macron. Eric Ciotti hardly enjoys this discretion, these solitary maneuvers of a man perched on his Aventine. Question of method, above all. Because their strategic orientations are not at odds. Eric Ciotti, an opponent as fierce as he is pragmatic, does not reject a possible agreement with Emmanuel Macron in the event of a political crisis. To a member of the government, the Nice resident cites three names of Prime Ministers, likely to bring together LR to the left of Macronie: Gérard Larcher, Michel Barnier and François Baroin. At the end of April, he raised the hypothesis again in front of a handful of LR deputies.
But the two men do not advance together. Gérard Larcher is not the standard bearer of LR, a formation in continuous decline since 2012. He uses his institutional position to avoid being accountable to his party. With its leaders, the problems are multiplying. This May 21, he almost chokes on reading the World. An exchange between Gabriel Attal and Olivier Marleix is transcribed. The boss of the LR deputies laughs in front of him at the rumors of Larcher’s arrival at Matignon, ironically about the replacement of “the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic by a confirmed senator”. The person concerned did not laugh. We do not offend Gérard Larcher with impunity. But Marleix, an unwavering anti-Macronist, does not want to hear about an alliance with this hated power. When Gérard Larcher suggested a dialogue mission to New Caledonia during a meeting in Matignon on May 17, he wondered if the latter was not already testing his method.
Fresh relations with Wauquiez
And don’t talk to Larcher about Laurent Wauquiez! The two exchanged on May 15, as revealed The Parisian. The president of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes refuses any coalition, a supposed obstacle to his presidential ambitions. If he hoped to be reassured after his meeting, it was a failure. LR’s putative candidate found him enigmatic and full of ambiguities. Gérard Larcher, for his part, does not understand the media discretion of Laurent Wauquiez and has little taste for his conquering personality. “He’s happy to be done,” he used to say about the former minister, who was decidedly too sure of himself. And what to say, finally, about the Europeans? Gérard Larcher hoped to place his advisor Patrick Dray in an eligible position, who was only entitled to a more modest proposal. This oddity, combined with insufficient renewal, convinced him to abstain during the final validation vote.
The fates of Gérard Larcher and the Republicans are however linked. The senator must take with him around forty LR deputies to offer Emmanuel Macron an absolute majority in the Assembly. No one knows if he is capable of it. The sap of power can calm certain right-wing elected officials. But what about these deputies from anti-Macronist lands, who would be asked to board the Titanic? Of these elected officials who are chomping at the bit in opposition, suddenly called to collaborate with a dying power? “Larcher does not have an individual relationship with the LR deputies,” confides one of them, skeptically. This parliamentarian one day requested a simple meeting with the President of the Senate. He is still waiting for her response.