C’eIt’s crazy how the dissolution has really clarified everything! This second five-year term is definitely like no other. The Attal government has already fallen, the European elections are barely over when the president decides to call legislative elections. With the result that we know… And some sixty days later, here is Michel Barnier at Matignon. For how long?
Hollande’s favorite
“I will not hide the esteem I have for him”: in To confrontthe book he published in 2021, François Hollande, who does not always have a kind word for people on the right, is full of praise for a certain Michel Barnier. “His handicap is due to his quality; he is a moderate. Which does not mean that he is moderately committed, but he is by respecting forms and people, which on the right makes him seem lukewarm or boring, as if you always had to twirl a wooden sword to be considered a swordsman.” The former president added, about the primary that was going to take place in Les Républicains: “If we were in a period where wisdom and experience were the first criteria, Michel Barnier would have his chance.”
Darmanin-Borne: already trouble in the gas?
After a complicated start to their relationship, Elisabeth Borne and Gérald Darmanin ended up getting along and appreciating each other, according to those involved. The former Prime Minister was touched by the delicate attentions of the Minister of the Interior when she left Matignon – a text message and a bouquet of flowers. The understanding reached its peak when Elisabeth Borne declared her candidacy for the presidency of the presidential party in The Parisian at the end of August, by affirming that he could count on the support of Darmanin, in particular. What a surprise then not to see him sitting around the dinner table that brought together on Monday, September 9, in a Parisian restaurant, according to information from Politico, the former Prime Minister and his supporters. The next day, a teasing resigning minister bumps into the one from Beauvau and accosts him: “So, you weren’t at dinner with Elisabeth?” Darmanin’s response: “No, we haven’t spoken since he announced his candidacy.” Perhaps Borne is saving herself for Darmanin’s return on September 29 in Tourcoing, where last year she put on a show by calming the turbulent minister’s desire for emancipation?
The Mayor, a King’s Speech
The end of seven years at the helm of the Bercy ocean liner is something to celebrate. On Thursday, September 12, Bruno Le Maire invited some 2,000 people (ministers, elected officials, senior civil servants, collaborators, journalists, etc.) for a moving “thank you speech” in which the resigning Minister of the Economy expressed this wish: “Let us learn to say we.” His roommates at the ministry, the deputy ministers, had received some instructions that very morning on how the event would unfold. An important detail that made more than one person smile: do not stand on the platform but at the foot of the platform. One of the particularly mischievous Bercy occupants amused himself by asking this question to BLM’s office: “When do the ministers speak?” Obviously, this was not planned in the program. Agreed to share, or even cede, responsibility for the state of public finances, but not to share the quarter of an hour of glory!
Barnier and the exes
After Matignon, the Hôtel de Brienne: Michel Debré and Alain Juppé have shown that the path is possible. Will Elisabeth Borne, Prime Minister between 2022 and January 2024, make her return to the government by becoming Michel Barnier’s Minister of Defense? When he received his predecessors last weekend, from Jean Castex to Elisabeth Borne via Edouard Philippe, Michel Barnier asked them if a ministry – necessarily sovereign for them – was likely to interest them. The response was a priori negative from those concerned… Elisabeth Borne will be able to devote herself to her projects: she has therefore already announced her candidacy to lead Renaissance and is finishing writing her book on her ministerial responsibilities…
Dati, Lecornu, Séjourné and the “blank sheet”
“He will be one of the heads of government with the most latitude in choosing ministers compared to the president, but the least in relation to Parliament”: a close friend of Michel Barnier sums up the government equation in this way. The Prime Minister really wants to start from a “blank sheet” to form his team: no outgoing member has received any guarantees. Even Sébastien Lecornu at Defense, about whom Emmanuel Macron spoke well of the new host of Matignon but without demanding anything; even Stéphane Séjourné at Foreign Affairs – “I would not bet a dime on his staying, Barnier was at the Quai d’Orsay and knows very well how diplomats perceive him”, notes a close friend. There remains the Dati case. “It’s true that this is a special case,” says a friend of the Prime Minister. “Michel and Rachida have a much better relationship than one might think, which goes back to the 2009 European elections. He was number 1 in the Ile-de-France constituency, she was number 2. We thought it would go very badly, but it was quite the opposite…”
The Barnier-Rousseau lunch
The scene takes place at the end of May. Aurélien Rousseau, the former Minister of Health and late chief of staff of Elisabeth Borne, had already slammed the door of the government last winter and has since February returned to the path of the Council of State, his original body. Imagine his surprise to receive an invitation to lunch from Michel Barnier. Between two forkfuls, Barnier, verbose, evokes Matignon with much relish already. He says he is convinced that a dissolution will take place before the end of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term, convinced also that another form of coalition of the center and its components could then take shape. Barnier, fortune teller?
Xavier Bertrand: the phone call to the PS
He could see himself at Matignon and, like other candidates, he was not closed to the idea of a (marginal) correction of the pension reform. If Bernard Cazeneuve did not call anyone, Xavier Bertrand, although he was right-wing, picked up the phone to call a few left-wing bigwigs, including Boris Vallaud, the leader of the socialist deputies. The idea was to find out how intransigent the socialists would be. But the conversation did not last long, with Vallaud assuring that his group would censor Bertrand all the more easily if he did not repeal the pension reform or did not intend to increase the minimum wage as provided for in the New Popular Front program. It was worth a try…
RN considers working with Barnier
Is it up to them to become the “crutch of the government” that they have spent months denouncing? At the National Rally, the question is: should we work with the Barnier government? “In the current situation of the three blocs in the Assembly, we have become essential, and the government knows it,” says a Front National member. The question is: do they want to work with us upstream or do we do this as we go along and they are condemned to watch which side the coin falls on…?” At the RN, the call of the system is finding more and more echo.
RN communication draws from the ranks of the JDD
The National Rally has found a new recruiting pool within Vincent Bolloré’s media. After recruiting columnist Guillaume Bigot, a former CNews columnist who became an RN MP, it is in the ranks of the JDD that the far-right party is coming to hunt heads. Tancrède de Chanterac, former Community manager of the JDDand former communications officer for Current valuesjoined the Le Pen party to manage communications.
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