Exterior – day – G7 (Italy) – Thursday June 13
Under the olive tree, hugs then Emmanuel Macron’s hand warmly placed on Georgia Meloni’s back. What is this president thinking? Does the idea that he is perhaps contemplating his future cross his mind when he smiles at the Italian Prime Minister, from the ranks of the extreme right? When the requests weaken here, he grabs his phone: “I’m at the G7, keep me informed in writing of what’s happening.”
Interior – day – Paris – Elysée and surrounding areas – Thursday June 13
Faced with the videos from Italy, a strategist of the head of state widens his eyes. “Here, we have to fight the brown plague; over there, it’s hugs and giggles with the blonde?” Is there any doubt about the presidential strategy? Ding! The image is interrupted, the reflection with it. SMS from the president. Keep him informed? Of course, but should we tell him that everything is chaos here? Dizziness of the recipient.
At the Elysée, what is striking is the background noise. A noise which, since the arrival of Jonathan Guémas, pen who became special advisor, had disappeared. It’s been a long time since the television hanging on the wall of his office no longer emitted either sound or image. Since last Sunday, no one has thought of cutting him off. BFM 24 hours a day in the white frame, and, in front of him, eyes reddened from tirelessly deciphering the successive banners, while hastily imagining a plan to bounce back. In order not to flinch, we convince ourselves that Paris and the press are bubbles disconnected from reality. The proof, this map – striking it is true – of the results of the European vote by polling station in the capital, Raphaël Glucksmann first, Valérie Hayer second, Manon Aubry third, and Jordan Bardella last: only three Parisian polls placed it on your mind.
In the party, in the Assembly, in the government, among friends of yesterday and today, this desire for a “return to the people” is intriguing, when it is not frankly distressing. The most sober comment gleaned in recent days from an early Macronist: “I am concerned and sad.” Conclusion of another: “Whatever the outcome of the election, the Fifth is totally ruined, the political landscape is in ruins and the game is driven by the extremes. I am disgusted.”
Should we say all this to the head of state?
Flashback. Exterior – Day – Omaha Beach – Thursday June 6
The president commemorates while in the distance, Alexis Kohler chats. The Secretary General of the Elysée rarely leaves the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and he would fully savor the moment if he had not for several hours been the receptacle of disapproval and worried questions. Since the morning, he began to distill the idea of an unprecedented political coup on Sunday, in the event of bad scores for the majority. “The coalition doesn’t fly, how do you expect us to ally with people who don’t want to help us,” he confided to his interlocutors. “There’s only dissolution, it’s the least bad time.”
His own D-Day, minus the allies. “It’s crazy, you’re not prepared,” a friend shouts. “I believe in the polls,” argues another. “The far right is going to get 40%. Dissolve, why not, but that’s expected.” In Macronie, we know how to moderate our enthusiasm. A few steps from Alexis Kohler, is Emmanuel Macron, proud and serious, taking advantage of the silences to calculate the seats of the majority in the event of early legislative elections?
Interior – Day – Le Touquet – Sunday June 9
In a file, the notes received during the last forty-eight hours, several proposed scenarios, a referendum, proportional to the legislative elections. “Changing the voting method was a lot of chicanery,” one of his advisors would later say. There is no longer time to flinch. In a few hours, he will react to the 40% of the extreme right by announcing a “democratic breath”: the dissolution of the National Assembly. True to himself, he still tries to convince those around him who admit their doubts: “It’s now or never.”
To the most concerned who alert him to the weakening of his power and the risk of damaging everything, starting with his legacy, he responds: “I believe quite the opposite! The act of dissolution is an act of protection of power of the President of the Republic.” Faced with “the dog lit”, as the most famous of his predecessors said, the absolute necessity to depressurize. “Let them come and get me,” boasted Emmanuel Macron in 2018. The matador has become a bull: what if they managed to find him? So, rather cohabitation than succession: exhausting the RN to the test of power, convincing these “angry French people” of the inanity of the Lepenist project, to reassure themselves: “I will not give the keys to this house to the “extreme right in 2027.” The Elysée in its final limits.
Interior – Night – Elysée – Sunday June 9
The bomb has been dropped, there is no longer any time for doubt. And yet. How can we be so wrong? Before: May 25, Emmanuel Macron is on a state visit to Germany, he assures those who accompany him: “We will achieve more than 20%.” In the days leading up to the June 9 vote, because that’s where the vote crystallized: “It’s still within reach of a good 20%.” And if not, what if it’s even less than what the polls predict? “So there is a very big problem,” says the president.
How can we be so wrong? Afterwards: he decided to dissolve, and also to choose the shortest deadline to summon the voters. “The left, I wish it courage to unite,” launches Emmanuel Macron on Sunday evening. On Monday, one of his relatives insisted: “La Nupes without Mélenchon, I ask to see.”
Exterior – On the airwaves – Tuesday June 11
The head of state, in the field of internal politics, has another nuclear weapon than dissolution. This does not appear in the Constitution, it is the sudden departure from the Elysée. On Wednesday March 13, 1986, in the afternoon, The world headline: “Mr. Mitterrand would not rule out the possibility of resignation.” Legislative elections are scheduled in three days. The maneuver is clear: dramatize, arouse fear.
It’s exactly the same thing, except it’s the opposite. Tuesday morning, Europe 1 affirms that Emmanuel Macron could “put his resignation in the equation”. The Elysée wonders who controlled the article, the Elysée rushes to deny it. If the French know that their vote in the legislative elections could allow them to dismiss the president, they may not hesitate… Above all, nip this idea in the bud. De-dramatize, avoid rejection. Wednesday in his press conference, Thursday in Italy, Emmanuel Macron repeats it: he is there until 2027.
The threat of resignation is a fatal weapon, which can be turned against its author. Certain things, this one in particular, are definitely not said. He knows, what’s more, that resigning would not allow him to run again straight away; one of his close friends called a constitutional expert this week to make sure.
Outside – Inside – Everywhere – The days that follow…
“Do you think it was crazy too?” The message says panic. It comes from someone close to the president and the recipient, when he receives it, finds himself very embarrassed. Tell the truth ? Point out the unpreparedness, the absence of dialogue initiated with the right, the absence of contact established with the left?
At the start of the week, a friend of Emmanuel Macron spoke with Raphaël Glucksmann. The head of the socialist list feels trapped by the parties, forced to ally with La France insoumise; he regrets the absence of an outstretched hand coming from the Elysée. His interlocutor does not believe he is wrong, it is indeed resentment that the essayist feels against the head of state. The dissolution is supposed to give a decisive advantage to the one who triggers it, but the palace does not anticipate, it tinkers, it no longer has a project, the palace is not ready. Did Emmanuel Macron warn Emmanuel Macron of the dissolution?
The situation is serious, François Bayrou has reinstalled on his computer the software which has accompanied him for years and which makes him proud. A matrix that would make it possible to gauge the results in each of the 577 constituencies. And its projections give you cold sweats. Those he discovered on Thursday June 13 announced 300 deputies for the RN, an absolute majority therefore, 185 to 190 for the Popular Front, and a measly 70 to 90 deputies for the presidential majority. Don’t cry wolf. 18 days of campaign and as many possibilities for rebounds. “All dynamics can change”, we want to believe in the chef’s entourage. Moreover, Marine Le Pen sent the message to the Château: “If I have 240 deputies, I will not accept power.”
Epilogue
Five days have passed since the earthquake. He did everything, wanted it, bragged about it. Sunday again, Monday again, he had his program in mind: me, me and me. But now we are trying, as best we can, to send him a message. The less he did, the better. Macron at a discount. Is he still holding a press conference on Wednesday? “He has just eaten up two hours of our speaking time,” snaps a former minister.
Macron condemned to silence, who is seeking a reprieve. “It didn’t make me happy, I took it personally, it touched me,” he said Thursday. Macron at bay. No more – for now – the big speeches, make way for the symbolic, the emblematic. Subliminal, necessarily subliminal. It’s no longer Jupiter, it’s Jupi-qui-earth. A former collaborator of the Elysée wrote the epitaph: “We can have been the salvation one day and the problem the next day, that is politics.” In the silence of twilight, only a laugh resonates, that of Emmanuel Macron obviously, when he says to an advisor: “You’ve made a real mess of me since Sunday!”
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