“I do not have the means that I consider necessary to effectively assume the functions of Prime Minister and, in these conditions, I have decided to put an end to it.” Michel Barnier knows the history of the Fifth Republic and the way in which Jacques Chirac slammed the door of Matignon in 1976. Ten days ago, he not only prepared a letter of resignation, as The World indicated it. Above all, he worked on a speech that would call the country to witness. In his departure agreement with Emmanuel Macron there were two points: real freedom for the choice of ministers; support from parties that belonged to the former majority.
However, the more the days passed, the more this support became conditional. Especially from two people. His predecessor, Gabriel Attal, today president of the EPR deputies, did as he pleased. “It was a bit complicated with him,” notes a friend of the Savoyard who has a sense of understatement. The now ex-Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, comes, like the head of government, from the right. They had everything to get along with, except that politics rarely rhymes with logic.
Relatives of Michel Barnier present it as “a cold-blooded animal”: “In fifty years of career, he has not made an enemy!” Has the time come to make one, or even two? There is what was seen. A transfer of power is not the most discreet place for a settling of scores. And there’s everything else. The next day, far from the cameras, Michel Barnier found Gabriel Attal. They’re still not on the same wavelength. The first has no desire to tie his hands, the second wants to have a long arm. Obviously, things are going badly. We are talking about the composition of the government. Gabriel Attal is pushing Gérald Darmanin for the portfolio of Minister of Defense, Michel Barnier already knows that he no longer wants him in government – he will take eight days to receive him so as not to offer him anything. Lucid about his fate, Gérald Darmanin will hold a discussion with the head of government on an increase in taxes. A welcome gift!
We were sold the Brexit negotiator, here is the schoolmaster
The Armies, it is to Bernard Cazeneuve that Michel Barnier intends to propose them. The discussion is short. Attal mentions other names and Matignon’s host interrupts him: “I’ll stop you, we’re not under the Fourth Republic.” Attal: “We are no longer under the Fifth either.” Between the two, a real institutional divergence. One day in September, Agnès Pannier-Runacher leaves Michel Barnier’s office. The latter, furious, calls Gabriel Attal. “She told me that she wanted to first ask the group’s authorization before agreeing to enter the government, it’s very serious.” “It’s normal,” replies Attal. Who wonders if his successor understood that the absolute majority, synonymous with an all-powerful executive, was dead.
The Savoyard intends to exercise his functions as Prime Minister in complete independence, despite the fragmentation of the National Assembly. Let MP Attal stay in his place, and everything will be fine! You don’t enter Matignon at 73 to be titillated by a young man of 35. Especially when you have a certain self-esteem, and Michel Barnier does not lack it. Gabriel Attal and Laurent Wauquiez singled out this strange head of government in their discussions, confusing authority with outdated authoritarianism. We were sold the Brexit negotiator, capable of bringing the whimsical Boris Johnson to his senses? There is the schoolmaster, as stiff as a post.
Gérald Darmanin, for his part, observes that Michel Barnier shows him contempt. No phone calls after his tax release. Neither to scold him, nor to invite him to come and discuss it over a whiskey. He never received a phone call, even to tell him that he was no longer a minister. Michel Barnier did not call him back, nor did he respond to come to his meeting in Tourcoing. He would not have been disappointed with the trip…
The method opposes them just as much. Gabriel Attal is surprised by the mystery surrounding the general policy speech, the road map of the new government. The Prime Minister consults, listens, but does not reveal anything about his precise intentions. “Who will manage the Corsican file, Bruno Retailleau or Catherine Vautrin?”, asks Gabriel Attal to Michel Barnier during an exchange with other coalition group presidents? He is still waiting for the answer. New institutional divergence. Michel Barnier wants to keep control. The elected official from Hauts-de-Seine, at the head of the largest group in the coalition, wants to weigh in. On September 26, on the eve of a government seminar, Attal held a clandestine council of ministers, with members of the government who were members of Renaissance.
“This is the first day of the rest of our lives.”
It is also a question of marital status – the years with Barnier weigh more than double those of Attal. And does the head of government remember that the very young Darmanin, 26 years old at the time, had kept his campaign accounts as a helper for the 2009 European elections? These three do not have the same reflexes, nor the same references. We need to find a left-wing minister. Why not apply for the PRG? Michel Barnier therefore calls Jean-Michel Baylet. The former minister, 77, is happy to hear his phone ringing. Except that he has not led the Left Radicals for eight years already…
Meanwhile, Gabriel Attal and Gérald Darmanin are thinking about tomorrow. The first has an appetite. Enough to combine the functions of party president and group president. The second has time. He launched his Popular movement and prepared a book. “This is the first day of the rest of our lives,” he warned on Sunday.
Tuesday, Michel Barnier will deliver his famous general policy speech. Everything now depends on the Assembly. Gabriel Attal and Gérald Darmanin engage in a subtle game of influence with Michel Barnier. More bluntly, we call it guerrilla warfare. Everyone assures him of their support and wishes him success. But at the same time they lead a hard life to preserve their singularity. Gabriel Attal fired first. The string is big, he knows it, but why not deprive yourself? On Sunday September 22, the day after the government’s announcement, here he is, hand on heart, asking his successor for guarantees on “ART, the right to abortion, LGBT rights”. What was his surprise to see Michel Barnier jump headlong into the trap a few hours later, and not just anywhere: at 8 p.m. on France 2, he felt obliged to give maximum solemnity to his remarks : no, acquired rights will be fully preserved. There was never any question of him touching it, but he finds himself obliged to proclaim it loud and clear.
But why are they so mean?
Since then, the elected official from Hauts-de-Seine has put his foot on the brake. The chosen one from the North, on the accelerator. In Tourcoing, Sunday, he warns: “Many of us will not be able to support a government that would raise taxes. Raising taxes is the easy way.” Suffice to say that it is good for Lucie Castets and the New Popular Front, not for the central bloc… Gérald Darmanin was ready to participate in the constraints inherent to the exercise of responsibilities; since he has been excluded, he regains all his freedom.
Before Gabriel Attal moves on to immigration? He has already warned Michel Barnier of his group’s opposition to a bill incorporating the provisions censored in January 2023 by the Constitutional Council from the text… Darmanin.
But why are they so mean? An LR elected official opened up about it to a close friend of Gabriel Attal. “Barnier will not be the sole candidate of the right and the center in 2027. You should continue flirting with the LR so that Attal is a candidate.” The leader of the EPR deputies must deal with a heterogeneous group, he was told. The former Prime Minister, like Gérald Darmanin, is fully part of the central bloc, which neither wants to alienate. He plays the card of cohabitation as much as that of coalition. He asked Renaissance ministers to attend his group’s weekly group meetings. A relative warns: “We will only be accountable for what we support.” The à la carte alliance. Everyone at home and the sheep will be well looked after.
Michel Barnier almost threw in the towel. Now launched, he lets his two “allies” do their thing. “Michel doesn’t have to negotiate too much with Attal and the others because everyone needs him. The parties have the atomic bomb, it’s true, they can overthrow the Prime Minister but it would fall back on their face immediately”, underlines a friend of Michel Barnier. More than their leaders, it is the voters of the right and Renaissance who have common interests and the same desire not to leave the country in the hands of the left or the National Rally. It’s well worth some effort. Michel Barnier will get into the habit of bringing together the presidents of groups supporting him every week at Matignon. Gabriel Attal will play the game. “We must not go down with the thing either,” recognizes one of his followers. Gérald Darmanin believes he only has a duty of solidarity towards his voters, since he was elected – unlike the Prime Minister. Keep me from my friends. As for my enemies, I’ll take care of them…
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