Can Emmanuel Macron continue with the same government team? A reshuffle appears to be a good option to relaunch its five-year term.
He made it clear last night during his long interview on France 5, Emmanuel Macron therefore wants to think about the future. The Head of State wants the country to “move forward” and turn the page on the Immigration law, once it has been retouched by the Constitutional Council and once promulgated by it. It must be said that the year 2023 will have been very turbulent for the President of the Republic, the executive having dealt with a harsh political reality: that relating to the discomfort of a relative majority in the Assembly. The government therefore spent its time negotiating with the right, convincing potential allies of the circumstances on most legal texts or imposing measures via article 49.3.
What emerges is an undeniable impression of political exhaustion, that the government is navigating in a fog depending on circumstances. This kind of climate can quickly take on the appearance of the end of a reign. Emmanuel Macron, who reads the editorials and the newspapers, knows well that the derogatory criticisms are pouring out and that the opposition is outraged every week. Above all, the Head of State cannot continue his mandate as if there was no unease in his majority – affected by the turn taken by the immigration law. Obviously, he cannot continue with this government which seemed to endure, constantly compose or, conversely, multiply, the forceful attacks in front of Parliament. How to re-enthuse your political action?
The president undoubtedly does not have the ambition – disproportionate – to enthuse the French, but he certainly wants to give himself a new lease of life, set a new course, and this requires a change of team. A ministerial reshuffle would even already be in the cards, if we are to believe Europe 1, which is categorical on the subject: “A major reshuffle will take place around January 15”, announced in the media a close friend of the president. The private radio site even assures that there will be “changes of heads at all levels: from Matignon, to ministries, including a certain number of central administrations”. And “the president also intends to reshuffle part of the inner circle of his cabinet at the Élysée”. Enough to send a new message and build a new narrative a few months before the European elections.
According to a leading witness to the Borne-Macron relationship who spoke on Sunday in the columns of JDD, the executive couple would no longer really be on the same wavelength, and only a “change at Matignon, with a sort of new deal that shakes things up” could preserve the end of the five-year term. But who to replace Élisabeth Borne if the current Prime Minister?
For the Sunday newspaper, after pensions and immigration, the objective of full employment could be the political horizon envisaged by Emmanuel Macron to bounce back. And who better than a loyal man with a very political profile to take over the reins of Matignon? If the name of Bruno Le Maire is mentioned by certain observers, echoed by JDDfor the moment, however, everything remains only speculation.