Sometimes, Bruno Le Maire annoys Gabriel Attal. Very exceptionally, the Prime Minister expresses his exasperation against “his” impetuous Minister of the Economy, and also has the good taste to choose his audience. In February, he confided to Eric Ciotti his doubts about the loyalty of his minister. It is not President LR who will deny it. On March 26, the time is no longer for suspicion but for frank anger. Bruno Le Maire has just responded in the Assembly to Véronique Louwagie, a moderate LR MP more concerned with working in harmony with the executive than obsessed with the idea of bringing it down. “I will spare you the 1743 amendments from the LR group for 127 billion in expenses, because I only have two minutes to present them to you,” exclaims the tenant of Bercy. The majority chuckles, Gabriel Attal ticks. The right is susceptible. With this charge, is the Minister of the Economy not pushing her towards censorship? “That’s his objective, I think…”, fumes the head of government in private.
Friendship withers where interests diverge. This iron rule of politics seems to have been built for Gabriel Attal and Bruno Le Maire. Two ambitious people with twin convictions. But two men subject to divergent injunctions. A Prime Minister responsible for cajoling a diverse majority – he spoke this Tuesday, April 9 with around fifteen elected officials from the left wing – and for sparing a right ready to unleash nuclear fire. Gabriel Attal gets along well with Eric Ciotti, interacts with his troops and avoids any provocation towards them. “It is not in conflict, but in dialogue,” assures an advisor to the executive. The Minister of the Economy has no such modesty. He drops his punches and showcases his budgetary orthodoxy as a symbol of political courage. “Everyone reasons according to their constraints and their interests,” notes a minister. All under the gaze of a president quite annoyed by the tenant of Bercy, but not free from intimate contradictions.
Rigor as a standard
This story begins with a gift. This Wednesday, March 13, Bruno Le Maire offers Emmanuel Macron his latest book at the end of the Council of Ministers. “The French Way” (Gallimard): a work with programmatic accents of 160 pages. At least reading it will be less tedious than the 1000 pages of the “BLM” presidential project in 2016. The book, written during the Christmas holidays, was published in the midst of a public finance crisis. Bruno Le Maire devotes a chapter to “debt-free France” and advocates a new, less costly social model. “The kind of debate that we do not decide in the middle of a five-year term, but during a presidential election,” judges a minister.
The tenant of Bercy does not have shameful rigor, he brandishes it as a standard. Like when he announced on TF1 an increase in electricity prices, an anecdote proudly recounted in his book. His friends unearth old statements. Did he not affirm in August 2022 that France was “close to the euro”? Decreed the end of “whatever it takes” in August 2021, before being overtaken by the war in Ukraine? We list the arbitrations lost under Jean Castex and Élisabeth Borne, decidedly less sensitive to the deterioration of public accounts. How rare it is to see an elected official claim these defeats! A former minister smiles at this attempt to bring together this image of “the father of rigor” and his record. “He was in solidarity with the line. Either it was too serious and he had to leave. Or he is in phase with it, and he is co-responsible for it. He is looking for an in-between, but cannot find it.”
Cursed PLFR
You have to try. Gabriel Attal and Bruno Le Maire share the same refusal of an increase in taxation. With distinct words. The leader of the majority calms his troops by launching a parliamentary mission on the “taxation of rents” – an enterprise as vague as it is modest -, when the boss of Bercy breaks through a platform in The echoes on the refusal of a tax increase. “I believe more in the discourse of clarity than wanting to please everyone,” defends one support. It is he who announces – again on TF1 – a massive plan of 10 billion euros in savings on February 18. From the start of 2024, Bruno Le Maire defends the presentation of a draft amending finance law (PLFR). He mentioned it on March 20 during a crisis meeting at the Elysée. Officially, to provide more room for maneuver and reassure the rating agencies.
The Elysée and Matignon are slamming on the brakes. Emmanuel Macron considers such a text unnecessary, Gabriel Attal measures the risk of a motion of censure from LR. The argument is shared by Gérald Darmanin and Aurore Bergé, two ministers from the right. At the top of the State, the Le Maire case is worrying. We are annoyed by the minister’s reaffirmed desire to go through a PLFR. This obscure legislative vehicle is the pretext for all suspicions. As revealed The echoes, a message sent on Sunday by the minister’s office to a few parliamentarians to push for a PLFR increases tension. The next morning, he raised the subject with the minister responsible for relations with Parliament Marie Lebec. Emmanuel Macron himself whistles the end of recess a few hours later, by inviting himself to the majority coordination meeting. “Taxation is not an Olympic sport, nor are financial laws, let’s not damage confidence,” said the head of state. A minister sums up: “Bruno has always been loyal to the president. But here, he played the balance of power too much to try to win his arbitration.”
“Macron, everyone tells me he doesn’t like me”
Macron-Le Maire. Curious duo formed for seven years. With each reshuffle, the music of a minister’s dismissal rises… then deflates. Bercy even regained the energy portfolio during the last reshuffle. When Gabriel Attal arrives at Matignon, the question of Le Maire’s retention arises. The young Prime Minister decides to keep him and leave him at the level of Gérald Darmanin. Let the two rivals neutralize each other! “Macron, everyone tells me that he doesn’t like me, that I annoy him, yet every time he reworks he comforts me and promotes me”, confided Bruno Le Maire in March to an interlocutor. Promotes him… and throws barbs at him at regular intervals. How many perfidies unleashed in small committees and relayed in the press? Like this “He should talk to the Minister of the Economy about it…”, told in March by The chained Duck.
In the Élysée entourage, we mock this “Saint-Just of public finances” with his anxiety-provoking speech, which threatens to make other areas of government action invisible. The singular voice of the Minister of the Economy annoys the president. Unlike Edouard Philippe, Bruno Le Maire decided to stay in government. “When you have been the balance sheet holder for 7 years, Le Maire’s speech does not hold up, mocks a faithful Emmanuel Macron. Either you say ‘Philippe’, or you say ‘I am Macron’.” Please be quiet. A form of schizophrenia surrounds certain criticisms. Emmanuel Macron devoted a crisis meeting at the Elysée to public finances and appeared on Monday at a meeting of the majority dedicated to the subject. The Head of State raises the issue of debt… before bringing down lightning on Bruno Le Maire, accused of doing too much. “BLM”, fuse forced into silence? A feeling of injustice grips his supporters.
The presidential election in sight
What does Bruno Le Maire play? The presidential camp is lost in hypotheses to grasp the minister’s strategy. Gabriel Attal has his own idea, fueled by his offensive attitude towards LR. Here, we depict a man in search of a “reason to break” with a view to 2027. There, an ambitious man who would take care of his speech in the event of dismissal. “He is at an impasse, judges a deputy. Either he insists on the rigor side, but will not win his case. Or he enters the mainstream discourse, but it will no longer exist.” In the minister’s entourage, we mock these scenarios, sad remakes of “House of Cards”. “The Mayor is a statesman. Not a man who plays three-cushion billiards.” “He is objectively worried about the state of finances,” adds MP Charles Sitzenstuhl, close to the minister. “He holds a line, without rigidity.”
This outbreak of fever around public finances tells the story of the political era. Emmanuel Macron is suffering an early end to his reign and no longer has the same authority over his troops. Gabriel Attal lives under the growing threat of a motion of censure. Bruno Le Maire enjoys increased freedom, despite an obscure strategy. “BLM feels very free, notes a minister. Is it linked to Attal or to the second five-year term? Surely a mixture of all that. We have a more limited lifespan than in all the other governments. Either it paralyzes, or we feels freer to engage in politics.” Bruno Le Maire is still moving.
Time passes, the presidential election is approaching. The members of the government are the rivals of tomorrow. Often, today. Emmanuel Macron no longer leads a collective of ministers, but deals with possible successors. A participant in a recent dinner with Bruno Le Maire was struck by his fixation on the Prime Minister… who questions the intentions of the tenant of Bercy. Bruno Le Maire judges privately that the key to 2027 does not lie so much in opposition to the Head of State as in detachment from him. That experience will be a decisive factor in winning against Marine Le Pen. So everything gets mixed up. The Minister of the Economy and the putative candidate for 2027 are one and the same. The action of the first is analyzed by his peers in the light of the ambitions of the second. Gabriel Attal is currently following in the footsteps of the president. His status as Prime Minister, accompanied by a series of constraints, inclined him further. Functions impress men.
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