The Minister of Health has the floor. Except that an armchair rarely speaks. This Wednesday, the Council of Ministers addresses individual measures and must validate a nomination depending on its services, but Aurélien Rousseau is not there to present it. Suddenly, Elisabeth Borne fills the silence. She doesn’t have the name in mind, searches through her papers, finds it, and the council of ministers continues.
This is the only moment of hesitation. The government is floundering, no one mentions it. Move along, nothing to see. However, the fire is smoldering in the executive. The attitude of several ministers, displaying their moods on Tuesday over the immigration bill, revolts others. “To lack composure to this extent, to make one’s desire to leave escape at that moment, it’s intolerable,” thunders one of them. So there would be the right-thinking and the others, those who can look at yourself in the mirror and others?” Another: “Really, if they feel bad, let them leave, but no public threat! It’s unheard of.” Jean-Pierre Chevènement said it for eternity: a minister shuts up or resigns.
Clément Beaune, Rima Abdul Malak, Patrice Vergriete, Sylvie Retailleau, Roland Lescure did not take action, Aurélien Rousseau did. “He thought he was making a Hamon, a Montebourg, a Filippetti, but he is not a tenor. He is neither Dupond-Moretti nor Attal, he is a non-event”, torpedoes a spokesperson. His departure, in the name of his convictions, nevertheless earned him praise in the camp that was his for a long time, the left.
This is called a state of mind. Soul, like AME. State medical aid is becoming a battleground in the Senate, and Gérald Darmanin, who initially did not want it in his bill – Rousseau remembers it as if it were yesterday, he was then director of cabinet in Matignon and attended the first arbitration meetings -, uses it politically to advance his text. Darmanin does judo, Rousseau doesn’t want to be a Judas. Something to grind by tackling the care basket? The Minister of Health prefers to smile: “There have been 35 operations for protruding ears, so that’s 70 ears affected.” He prefers to see the positive side of aid for illegal aliens, a public management measure originally created to better track spending.
He is a member of a team. On the deletion-transformation of the AME proposed by the senators, the government gives an “opinion of wisdom”. Text from an old socialist acquaintance. “You can’t let this happen.” He doesn’t understand, gets angry one evening before entering the set of Quotidien. The servant of the State is not the type to play the rebellious but here he is a minister. “This is a profound error and there are times when an error borders on a fault!” he blurted out in Olympian calm. Text from the same friend: “Thank you.” Breath of fresh air. Till next time.
The last time, it will be the excitement following the adoption of the motion to reject the immigration bill. The text is twisted, distorted, twisted. Enough is enough. “If there was one to have the courage to resign in the name of his convictions, it was him. He has a political conscience anchored to his body, bows Boris Vallaud. What he did is not a whim.”
He always knew how to say stop. On July 17, 2023, he left his position as chief of staff at Matignon, a decision that had been considered for a long time. He is not exhausted as he was after his three years spent as Director of the Île-de-France Regional Health Agency, but he is tired of constantly being in the middle, between ministers, between collaborators . Elisabeth Borne is not an easy boss, who wants “to be both minister and head of office, which is not possible at Matignon”, she sometimes sighs. He admires the combativeness of this woman, it is through her that he, the former communist, arrived at Macronism, a 25th hour worker. He could have signed the Prime Minister’s general policy declaration, with its ode to work as a factor of emancipation. Moreover, he largely contributed to its writing.
“I’m doing a Borne out”
But their relationship became complicated over time. Two cabinet directors in the same room, “it creates sparks”, assumed Aurélien Rousseau afterwards. She, severe, stiff, implacable. He, round, sometimes angry, not resentful. She does. Pension reform sometimes makes him uncomfortable, but he follows it. Gérald Darmanin’s right-handed chin thrusts and she lets it happen… The tall man’s jaw tenses.
Pension reform, first mood. The joke – “as Moscow asked me, I killed social democracy” – that he liked to repeat since the fall of the Hollande five-year term no longer makes him laugh. The last socialist friends turn their backs on him. The best of them, Boris Vallaud, often raises his voice against his boss’s choices. How can he let this happen? Not him, not that. Homeric dispute. Will we still wake up with the children and Najat? Doubts, discomfort, calling your friend Vallaud, apologizing, promising a good meal, laughing about everything, forgetting politics. What if we had to leave Matignon? Yes, this is no longer possible. “I’m doing a Borne out.” Bitter smile.
July 18, the phone rings. This is Alexis Kohler. They spoke every day for months. “I do not insist on offering you entry into the government?”, asks the secretary general of the Elysée. “No, be cool.” The phone cuts out when Rousseau’s Eurostar enters the tunnel. British getaway with the kids. Emmanuel Macron and Elisabeth Borne, who initially had another name in mind, insisted: “You do ch…, you will be named this afternoon.” Two days later, he is Minister of Health. He didn’t want to come, he’s already left.
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