Annecy. Its lake, its castle and… its robbers. This September 12, the deputies of the Republican Right (DR) are celebrating their return to business in the Savoyard city, a few days after the appointment of Michel Barnier to Matignon. A local television station came to cover the right-wing heist, crowned with glory despite yet another electoral debacle. Olivier Marleix is in a teasing mood. He leans towards Laurent Wauquiez. “Is it on this channel that you supported pension reform?”
He was criticized for his discretion during parliamentary debates in 2023. He did not want to get bogged down in an eruptive debate. And then, he was not a deputy and never considered the Assembly as a presidential launching pad. “No one looks at what’s happening there,” he slips before the dissolution to an LR deputy. One decision by Emmanuel Macron and everything shakes up. The right is finding color again, Bruno Retailleau is saturating the media space. What if the Assembly invited itself into homes?
Hats off to the artist! On November 11, Brice Hortefeux sent a laudatory SMS to Laurent Wauquiez. “I don’t know how you did it, but well done.” The boss of the DR group has just announced on 8 p.m. on TF1 a partial revaluation of pensions on January 1, 2025, reversing the pension freeze provided for by the finance bill. A check for 500 million euros signed by a simple deputy is not a trivial thing. The Fifth Republic is decidedly flexible. The elected official negotiated this agreement with Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin and Jérôme Fournel, Michel Barnier’s chief of staff. The Prime Minister gave him the scoop on the announcement. It will therefore be the first news broadcast in Europe. Nothing is too solemn for the unofficial presidential candidate.
The next day, Laurent Wauquiez asked his deputies to bring the good news to their elderly voters. May his victory spread throughout the cities and countryside! Laurent Wauquiez is not counting on the Ensemble pour la République (EPR) deputies to play the role of ambassadors. They are choking in front of this “coup”, worthy of “the old political world”. They are indignant at the “humiliation” inflicted by their ally, who crushed their record on TF1. THE would he play an individual card?
“Barnier’s record will be ours”
We discover the moon in Macronie. Laurent Wauquiez is hungry for personal gains. The appointment of Michel Barnier certainly forced him to enter into a coalition with his rivals. But the former minister actually refuses to be diluted in the “common base”, a supposed ersatz of macronism. He keeps his distance, anxious to embody the change in 2027. And seizes the slightest opportunity to attack the legacy of the head of state. “Michel Barnier’s record will be ours. There is no question that Emmanuel Macron’s will be,” he confides. Laurent Wauquiez, the loner, forced into the collective adventure. The tears of the presidential camp would almost make him smile. Gabriel Attal, hostile to any increase in employer contributions, is still waiting for his meal? Let him be less greedy! To a DR deputy, a minister confided: “Gabriel negotiates with great demands. Wauquiez is less demanding, he obtains more quickly.”
Everyone at home and the cows will be well looked after. The former regional boss refuses any “intergroup” with the coalition deputies, to the great dismay of his peers. Nor did he honor the invitation launched by Gérald Darmanin for his political return to Tourcoing. And don’t talk to him about the partial legislative elections! The LR flag will be planted everywhere. “There are no outgoing deputies affected by these elections,” he said on November 12 during a meeting with Michel Barnier. Too bad for Gabriel Attal, who hopes to reconquer two constituencies abandoned by Renaissance to the RN and the NFP this summer.
With Macronie, marriage is reasonable. And for a limited time. The deputy for Haute-Loire still has little knowledge of the EPR deputies, who come from another political generation. “Before 2017, there was a parliamentary aristocracy which only touched the rank-and-file deputies with their fingertips. He is in this logic, like Gabriel Attal,” notes an EPR executive. Laurent Wauquiez, on the other hand, organizes a lunch every week with a group of DR deputies. He maintains a tight boundary between his party and his one-day allies. Like when he asks his troops to inform him of proposed laws co-signed with other political groups. Or when he transforms “Questions to the Government” (QAG) into a showcase for the right. DR deputies are asked to avoid themes specific to their constituencies. Make way for national politics! “The group must embody a right-wing voice that we hear,” assumes a relative.
This esprit de corps is assumed. Failing to reach an agreement with Gabriel Attal to offer DR the presidency of the Economic Affairs Commission, on October 9 he gave way to the rebellious MP Aurélie Trouvé. Did he forget that at the end of August he described LFI as “the greatest political danger for our country”? With Gabriel Attal, the tone rises. “I am not your back-up force,” he tells the former Prime Minister. Laurent Wauquiez admits to having “made a joke about an anecdotal subject”: “Politics is also about making people understand a balance of power.” His deputies praise this newfound “leadership”, even if his intransigence towards Macronie divides. “Those who criticize him for being too offensive are the first to cry to him because they did not obtain the secretariat of the 19th corn export commission in India,” laughs MP Ian Boucard.
Laurent Wauquiez and Gabriel Attal formed a utilitarian relationship, a mixture of common interests and confrontations. This summer, they easily agreed on the distribution of key positions in the Assembly. The common base is sometimes good. When Gabriel Attal cross-checks information transmitted by Laurent Wauquiez, it turns out to be… correct! Both highlight the stiffness of Michel Barnier, who was so secretive during the formation of the government. This summer flirtation is over. Trust is broken, even if the two elected officials sometimes combine to criticize the Prime Minister’s “method”. And Laurent Wauquiez continues to call his rival “Gabriel” in front of his flock. “I’m not sure that they have discovered each other’s turpitudes,” smiles a pillar of the common base. “But they can sometimes help each other, telling themselves that they are not in the same niche.”
“There is no room for rebellious people”
Michel Barnier doesn’t want to smile. The Prime Minister judges privately that only the MoDem and Horizons are “playing the game” of the coalition. Oh surprise, these groups are not led by a presidential candidate. What is Laurent Wauquiez playing with the Brexit negotiator? His score is subtle. The deputy for Haute-Loire has no immediate interest in weakening the head of government, still supported by the right-wing people. The failure of the Savoyard would reflect on the entire Republican right. He asks his troops to be “irreproachable” and refrains from any hostile public expression. “There is no room for rebellious people,” he theorizes in a group meeting. If an MP suggests that he unveil his savings proposals before the Prime Minister’s general policy declaration (DPG), the response falls. “That would not be polite towards Michel Barnier.” He even swallows ideological snakes. Like this increase in taxation, long depicted as a red line by the right.
Therein lies the Wauquiez paradox. His official support for the Prime Minister is combined with a destabilization of the “common base”, Michel Barnier’s political cement. Shows him a white paw. Has he already attacked “Michel”? Matignon is more severe. Does it really make our job easier? A recent interlocutor of Michel Barnier depicts a man “scandalized” by the attitude of the unofficial boss of the right. “He should have been dripping with unity and played in sacred union with ex-macronists, judges an LR executive. The French would have seen a right-wing man continue his takeover bid on the central bloc.”
Between the two men, distrust reigns. Michel Barnier never digested the investiture of Laurent Wauquiez in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional elections in 2015, which he coveted. Their relations deteriorated as soon as the government was formed. Michel Barnier’s taste for secrecy responds to the grievances of the former regional boss. The head of government uses a veto from Emmanuel Macron as an excuse to block his way to Beauvau. Strange, a screenshot of the conversation sent by the Elysée would tell a different story. There is a suspicion of lies in the air… “False, retorts a supporter of Michel Barnier. Emmanul Macron never wanted Laurent Wauquiez.”
Wauquiez’s phone rang before the Savoyard’s appointment. His entry into Matignon caused a network outage. At the beginning of October, the boss of the DR deputies complained about this silence to someone close to Michel Barnier. Who immediately alerts Matignon by SMS: we must quickly calm things down. Their relations have since normalized. “He supports Michel Barnier because his group and public opinion demand it. But tomorrow?” asks a DR executive.
Ciotti’s regrets
Tomorrow ? Michel Barnier and Laurent Wauquiez have a divergent vision. Michel Barnier wants the “common base” to lead to a single candidacy for the presidential election. Laurent Wauquiez dreams of a simple parenthesis. The deputy judges that the tripartite of political life risks leading to a victory for the “extremes”, for lack of a republican alternative. This “common base” especially undermines his chances at the Élysée. Laurent Wauquiez is not at the ideological center of this alliance, whose colors he cannot carry. His outings on the supreme courts or immigration marginalize him there. “He has no allies,” notes a centrist. Quite the opposite of Edouard Philippe, comfortable in the central bloc and promoter of an alliance “from the conservative right to the Mitterrandian left”.
Laurent Wauquiez has desires elsewhere. He dreams of a reconstitution of a more homogeneous left-right divide. “The real opposition in the country is not facing Macronism or the National Rally. It is facing a left […] determined to carry out a multicultural policy of destruction”, he theorized in December 2023 in the Figaro. A former “friend” remains skeptical. Éric Ciotti allied himself with the National Rally in June, convinced of the lack of oxygen from the right. “If Laurent had taken my initiative, he could have had 90 deputies and positioned himself from the inside,” he confided to an elected LR official. After all, the former regional boss shares the regal convictions of the RN. He does not oppose any discourse of values, even if he insists on their economic disagreements. Laurent Wauquiez did not take the plunge. He therefore undertakes the Herculean task of redrawing the entire political landscape to believe in his chances. And make the “common base” a simple bad memory.
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