Darmanin’s maneuvers to succeed in his bet – L’Express

No one lies…or tells the whole truth. By minimizing their own renunciations, everyone looks out for their own interests. Gérald Darmanin knows where his is. The Minister of the Interior needs a strong text to be adopted in the Senate, in order to twist the arm of the Republican deputies, who are essential to obtain a majority in the Assembly. This will be done this Tuesday, November 14 at 2:30 p.m. At the same time, he must reassure his majority, who are keen on the major balances of the initial project. Make concessions, but keep up appearances. “The Senate was only the first leg. The return leg will be hard for Darmanin,” slips a minister.

This first leg, Gérald Darmanin played (almost) at home. Right and centrists have a majority in the Senate. They never wanted to reject the text, concerned about their influence in the making of the law. The Minister of the Interior maintains cordial relations with Bruno Retailleau. The two men exchange views at regular intervals. The Beauvau tenant even picked up his phone after a dirty tweet from the Vendéen. With Hervé Marseille, boss of the centrist group, it’s even simpler. The president of the UDI was in Tourcoing during Gérald Darmanin’s political comeback.

There is this damn article 3, the subject of friction within the senatorial majority. Bruno Retailleau does not want it, Hervé Marseille is keen on a legislative provision. But the ideological differences between the two men are too weak and their interests converge too much for an agreement to fail. It began on Monday, November 6 during a dinner with Gérard Larcher and concluded the next day. The head of the Law Commission François-Noël Buffet writes the peace treaty.

Gérald Darmanin can breathe. Too bad if its provision is devitalized: the title is no longer granted automatically, but falls under the discretionary power of the prefect. Our man was not prepared to die for Article 3 in its initial version. The Minister of the Interior was simply waiting for the text to be examined in session to bury it without flowers or wreaths, or at least to let go of the ballast. When you play liar poker, you reveal your cards at the last moment. And what does it matter if the affair will leave traces between LR senators and centrists. These broken dishes are not his.

In the Senate, Gérald Darmanin is ambivalent. He is present in the Hemicycle, calls LR elected officials individually and multiplies his speeches at length to justify every detail of his text. But it’s better to leave the keys to the truck with LR. Quota vote by Parliament, tightening of the conditions for family reunification… The minister endorses the senatorial right’s tightening of the screws. During an exchange with deputies from the right wing of Renaissance, he recalled a few weeks ago the Macronist electorate’s expectation of authority and the need to repair a “political scoliosis” with a view to 2027.

The war led by the former mayor of Tourcoing is made up of contradictory injunctions. Ambiguity – cynicism’s false twin – is an effective weapon. As on the transformation of State medical aid (AME) into Emergency Medical Aid (AMU). The government has issued an opinion of wisdom on the provision voted by the senatorial right in order not to “rob” the upper house. Gérald Darmanin judges, however, that this provision is a legislative rider – an article unrelated to the law and therefore unconstitutional – but legitimizes the debate on the health care of illegal immigrants. “Questions may arise, but this comes under a finance bill,” says Beauvau. Here, an ideological concession to the right. There, the law erected as a shield to preserve the majority.

Place at the Assembly, where the project will be examined from December 11. The Minister of the Interior is preparing to wage a war of nerves with the boss of LR deputies Olivier Marleix. The elected official from Eure-et-Loir, a notorious anti-Macronist, harbors an aversion to the former Sarkozy leader. He refuses any meeting with him and calls on his troops to keep their distance. He privately mocks Gérald Darmanin’s attempts to seduce LR elected officials, summed up as “promises of gendarmerie barracks” in the constituency. In an internal memo addressed to his troops, he trashes a “left-wing” text and trashes almost every article. “Marleix is ​​on a personal crusade, notes an executive advisor. He will never vote for the law. But does he have 30 LR deputies or 50 with him? If he only has 30, it’s very good. If he has 50, it’s more boring.”

Gérald Darmanin intends to overcome his opponent and draw around twenty decisive votes from his group. His weapons: the polls favorable to the bill and his knowledge of LR elected officials. He talks with them, even the die-hard opponents. During an examination of the security budget in the law committee, the deputy for Belfort Ian Boucard – who voted for a motion of censure against the Borne government – sharply criticized the minister before disappearing for a vote in the hemicycle. He immediately receives a text message from the minister: “It would be good if you came back! I will answer you.” On the right, the Darmanin case is a decisive factor in the equation. These ongoing relationships with LR elected officials poorly mask the hatred others have shown him since his “betrayal” in 2017. A leader chokes: “Do we want to help him, he who spits on us when we have him fed?”

Gérald Darmanin likes to remind us that “the temperature of the water has changed” on this text, as it has been so hardened. But at what cost ? The tenant of Beauvau must deal with his majority, which does not intend to swallow the Senate’s copy without flinching. The president of the Law Commission Sacha Houlié promises to restore the initial text of the executive, including its regularization aspect. The left wing has lost weight since the first five-year term, but each vote is precious under a relative majority. A Renaissance executive wonders: “What is its strategy for this text to pass? How can we think that a completely right-wing text like that can garner the vote of the majority in the Assembly?”

In small steps, this strategy is taking shape. The “legislative rider” card will be brandished to revisit senatorial provisions relating to nationality law, unaccompanied minors and especially the AME, which is fracturing Renaissance. The minister is counting on the support of the Liot group, one of whose members will be co-rapporteur of the text. The other rapporteurs, starting with the former socialist Florent Boudié, must represent all components of the majority.

LR is often described as a “pivotal” group in the Assembly. The Renaissance group will be kingmaker this time. Heterogeneous, he can build circumstantial majorities with the left or the right on this text. Gérald Darmanin’s success will be indexed to the extent of his rewriting. Enough to reassure the majority, not too much to have the right at your side: lace work. Blessed is he who can foresee the extent of this remodeling. For now, everyone swears to be at the barycenter of Macronism. Sacha Houlié assures in private that he is representative of his group, when the right wing of Renaissance mocks his “personal positions”.

Perhaps Gérald Darmanin is a follower of the Coué method. The man privately displays his optimism about the adoption of the text without 49.3. The minister needs a political victory to demonstrate his ability to unite… unlike Elisabeth Borne, obliged to push through for her pension reform. Within the executive, we judge above all that France needs a text on immigration before 2027. A member of the government sums up: “If we cannot get an effective text adopted on the subject, we will see our failure in four years against the RN.” The future of Gérald Darmanin will then be a very trivial subject.