“A reshuffle only makes sense if it is accompanied by good storytelling,” decreed a few days ago a former member of the government who is still waiting to know in what sauce it will be eaten. In good French and a good Macronist: a good narrative. Which one accompanies the formation of Gabriel Attal’s first government, announced Thursday evening by the secretary general of the Élysée Alexis Kohler?
The new Prime Minister was the guest of TF1’s 8 p.m. show a few minutes after the appointment of his team and issued his guideline: “Efficiency! What I want is action, action, action. Results, results, results. And then it’s energy: women and men 200% committed to meeting the expectations of the French.” The opposite would have been surprising. Beyond the somewhat expected good intentions distilled by Gabriel Attal, what analysis is drawn from the composition of his government, knowing that the message appears to be vampirized by the presence of Rachida Dati?
It is a shift to the right, and not the least: out of fourteen ministers making up the Attal I government, eight come from the ranks of the Republicans, including three former Sarkozy loyalists (Gérald Darmanin, Catherine Vautrin and Rachida Dati). In the list of full-time ministers announced by the Secretary General of the Élysée Alexis Kohler on the steps of the Élysée, there are as many ministers from a left-wing party as there were in 2007 when Nicolas Sarkozy composed his opening government: one and only. “I’m not here asking my ministers to empty their pockets to show me the card of their political party, I don’t think that’s what the French expect,” the Prime Minister brushes aside, who had undoubtedly anticipated the remark. This is good, Rachida Dati no longer has a card at all: Éric Ciotti, the leader of the Republicans, immediately announced the exclusion of the new Minister of Culture.
Paris and the beam
Nicolas Sarkozy’s former Minister of Justice was recruited by Emmanuel Macron himself, as revealed The echoeswho only informed his head of government at the end of the afternoon… In short, at the last moment – not the best way to establish the authority of his new Prime Minister.
After having promoted to Matignon a Gabriel Attal who has become the French’s favorite political figure according to the latest Ipsos barometer, the President of the Republic is now launching a political boxer, a media animal if ever there was one. An experienced elected official, too, like Catherine Vautrin, the new Minister of Labor, Health and Solidarity: exit civil society and “amateurs” – of whom we should be proud; here comes the time for political professionals, still led by the youngest tenant of Matignon in the history of the Fifth Republic.
The head of state’s maneuver is not without ulterior motives or ambition for the rest of his five-year term. The appointment of Rachida Dati already establishes her as the candidate of the presidential majority in the next municipal elections in Paris. If by chance the Parisian right follows its leader, although excommunicated from LR, the left, in power in the capital, could well find itself threatened in 2026. But Anne Hidalgo, who had suggested that she would not no third term, will certainly not refuse a new duel with his nemesis.
Emmanuel Macron therefore chooses an assumed alliance between his camp and the right in Paris, and perhaps even more: the composition of the government signals the end of “at the same time”. How will the left wing of Macronie, already weakened and annoyed since the text of the immigration law, welcome this new move to the right, symbolized by the recruitment, not only of Rachida Dati, but also of Catherine Vautrin, whose entry into Matignon they refused a year and a half ago? The beam continues to work, but now only on one side.
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