The Minister Delegate for Communities, Caroline Cayeux, left the government on Monday, November 28. She is replaced by Dominique Faure.
[Mis à jour le 28 novembre 2022 à 19h30] “This Sunday, November 27, I presented to the President of the Republic and to the Prime Minister my resignation from my duties as Minister Delegate for Local Authorities.” These are the words of Caroline Cayeux’s press release, published Monday, November 28 at the start of the afternoon on Twitter. In question ? A disagreement with the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP). In her press release, the now ex-minister explains that following her “declaration of assets, the HATVP [lui] indicated that she considered it undervalued”. Caroline Cayeux claims to have “obviously taken into account his observations” and to have “aligned himself with his assessments in a letter dated November 21”. But that would not have not enough.
“The High Authority for Transparency in Public Life continues to question my sincerity,” said Caroline Cayeux. Consequence: “In this context, it seemed preferable to resign so as not to hinder the action of the government”, she said, before thanking President Emmanuel Macron and his Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne “for their confidence”. The nature of this disagreement has not been made public, but it is not absurd to imagine that the authority responsible for providing transparency on the assets of ministers and the potential risks of conflicts of interest has put the finger on a potentially explosive file. It is also not absurd to imagine that Elisabeth Borne and Emmanuel Macron expressly wanted this dispute between the HATVP and the minister not to pollute the action of the government.
Caroline Cayeux had a conversation with the Prime Minister, then with Emmanuel Macron. At 1 p.m., the Élysée sent a statement to indicate that she was leaving her post and that she was replaced in her post by her colleague in charge of Rural Affairs, Dominique Faure. According to the press release, the president specifies that he terminated the functions of Caroline Cayeux “at his request”, but “on the proposal” of the Prime Minister. Which means, without the diplomatic coating, that the head of government wanted her resignation and made it known to the head of state. Emmanuel Macron, currently the target of an investigation opened by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office into the assistance of consulting firms in his electoral campaigns, is probably sensitive to anything that could give his detractors enough to fuel soap operas with favoritism or lawsuits for connivance. .
Anyway, the opposition did not fail to react to the resignation of Caroline Cayeux on Monday. “Caroline Cayeux is resigning. Not for her LGBT-phobic remarks, which did not bother Macron, but [à la] after [d’]a disagreement with the HATVP on its declaration of assets. Clearly, Macronie is mired in matters of money, conflict of interest and opacity…”, lamented the LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis, Bastien Lachaud, while his colleague and vice-president of the group LFI-Nupes, Clémence Guetté, estimated on Twitter that “we no longer see the end of Macronist scandals”. “Exit Caroline Cayeux. President Macron and Madame Borne must now explain to us why they are still keeping Alexis Kohler and Pannier-Runacher. How far do the protections of certain oligarchic behaviors go?” for his part annoyed MP LFI Raquel Garrido. And Olivier Faure of the Socialist Party to question: “The real question is: who has no trouble with the law or the HATVP in this government?” Finally, on the side of the National Rally, the vice-president of the RN in the Assembly, Sébastien Chenu, also reacted, mocking in particular the flash passage to the government of Caroline Cayeux: “Quick as lightning this passage to the government! Definitely the money and the Macronie, it’s an endless story…”
Caroline Cayeux had made homophobic remarks on TV
If Elisabeth Borne and Emmanuel Macron have seen fit to separate from their minister, it is undoubtedly also because she was already in a very fragile position since the summer. On July 11, a magazine stand Stubborn demanded the departure from the government of all those who had been linked to the Manif pour tous. On July 12, Caroline Cayeux was questioned about her positions on marriage for all, on Public Sénat. Indeed, when she was a senator, she called same-sex union a “whim” and a “design against nature.” The minister then assured that she was maintaining her words, then added that she had never paraded with the Manif pour tous, before saying: “I have a lot of friends among all these people and frankly, it’s a bad trial that I am made “.
The expression “these people” had caused many politicians, journalists and Internet users to react, leading the minister to apologize on Tuesday afternoon. “My words hurt many of you. I deeply regret them, they were understandably inappropriate,” she wrote on Twitter. On July 13, several associations fighting against homophobia (Mousse, STOP Homophobia, LGBT Sports, LGBT Education, LGBT Families and Adheos) announced that they had filed a complaint against Caroline Cayeux. The Minister Delegate for Local Authorities then reiterated her apologies, this time in the columns of the Parisianthe 14th of July.
The politician was born on 1er November 1948 in Paris, she is the daughter of Doctor Pierre Fournier, former President of the Council of the National Order of Pharmacists from 1979 to 1987. After a degree in English and a higher diploma in private international law, she became a teacher and then responsible of a professional training organization. She began her political career in 1997, when Philippe Séguin called her to the executive committee of the RPR. In 2001, she created a surprise by beating the outgoing mayor of Beauvais, a socialist in place for 24 years.
In addition to her duties as mayor, Caroline Cayeux was regional councilor for Picardie from 2004 to 2011, then senator from 2011 to 2017, where she was vice-president of the social affairs commission. Since 1er January 2020, she is also president of the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion. She left the Les Républicains party in 2018 and signed, in 2021, a published forum speak Sunday newspaperin which she joins 600 local elected officials in favor of a second term for Emmanuel Macron.