How many days does it take to digest New Year’s Eve, Christmas Eve, and an aborted slingshot attempt? Clément Beaune gives us the answer: 16. After granting himself, or rather inflicting, a two-week media silence following the vote on the “immigration” law, on December 19, the Minister responsible for Transport, considered by a good part of Macronie as the leader of the ministers threatening to resign before the holidays, spoke again on January 4 in The Parisian. Between redemption and affirmation of his social-democratic sensibility, he certifies that he wants to stay in government and assures that he remains faithful to his political family: “I have defended the values of ‘macronism’ since day one and I never give up. […] I don’t pretend to do everything well, who can? But there is one thing that I will not accept, and that is being given a lesson in loyalty,” he declared to the daily newspaper. The young Elysee collaborator who became a young political wolf, who never hid wanting to take leadership of the left wing of the majority, did he realize that he had done too much? Did his bet make him a pariah?
Wednesday December 20, Elisabeth Borne receives for Christmas. Members of the government are invited, with their spouses, to Matignon for an end-of-year party. Everyone is there, with a few exceptions: Sébastien Lecornu, Bruno Le Maire, Eric Dupond-Moretti, Christophe Béchu… “They all have a good excuse… unlike Clément, who has no reason not to resign” , one of the participants, whose heart is nevertheless firmly anchored to the left, texts before sitting down at the table. Even if the evening is dedicated to decompression, there is resentment in the air – and humor, visibly.
The evening before, the largely right-wing immigration bill was voted on in the National Assembly and Clément Beaune had invited some of his colleagues from the left wing – Sylvie Retailleau (Higher Education), Roland Lescure (Industry ), Patrice Vergriete (Housing) – at dinner at the Ministry of Ecological Transition to agree on the procedure to follow. How to weigh? How to demonstrate their sensitivity? Since the afternoon, rumors of resignation have been hovering. Does Emmanuel Macron have his own rebels? “The dinner was already planned after the CMP: the idea was to discuss the substance, to be together, to think about the aftermath, the agenda, to know what subject to bring up for the future, sweeps Beaune. This dinner, it was not the order of the solar temple…” Not a collective suicide, then. But, at a minimum, a staged protest: “When you are a minister and you want to resign, you do it, or you call the president to tell him that it is not acceptable,” says one of the pillars of the government. But we’re not making a public threat, that’s unheard of.”
Return to Matignon. Let’s sit down. On the menu for the festivities: oysters, Thai beef salad, fish, potatoes, waffles, log and Breton pancakes. However, according to several of his colleagues, Clément Beaune seems to have a somewhat knotted stomach. It must be said that he did not escape the taunts of his little comrades entering the reception room: “So, are you still here?” It was to be expected, but the Parisian canceled a cabinet seminar to go to rue de Varenne despite the situation: missing his turn would only have accentuated the discomfort and the insinuations. “Clément was livid, knocked out on his feet,” says a member of the government. Despite everything, the Minister of Transport, whom many consider to have gone off the rails, is still entitled to the caramels and madeleines from Calvados offered by the Prime Minister, Mother Christmas for an evening, which rewards even children who do not were not wise. “She wasn’t going to say: ‘So those who have gifts stay, the others go out the door…'”, jokes a minister. Elisabeth Borne can be cruel, but not to this extent.
Why on earth among Vergriete, Retailleau, Lescure or other Aurélien Rousseau – the only one to have actually resigned to date – is Clément Beaune the one who concentrates the resentments? Beyond unhiddenly nurturing lofty ambitions, such as those of conquering the town hall of Paris in 2026 or taking the head of a left wing of Macronie in pieces, he is suspected of having caused the states of soul of his friends throughout the day of the vote on the immigration law to stir up a revolutionary sauce: “It’s really not clean what he did, to throw around these things while giving them more importance than it didn’t have any…”, regrets one of his comrades.
The Minister of Transport, for his part, refutes all the insinuations peddled by his colleagues, some of whom he suspects, a slight hint of malice. The one who has always been a fervent and ostentatious defender of Elisabeth Borne spoke ten times with the Prime Minister about the text the week before her vote, and therefore considers that he has never moved forward in disguise. Nor having organized any form of team blackmail or attempted sedition. “I accept that there are moments of questioning and reflection. You may not agree with me, but you cannot blame me for not defending my convictions, for not being a fighter, for never took risks.”
It’s probably also the fault of seniority. Clément Beaune clung to the Emmanuel Macron wagon from the end of 2015 by integrating his cabinet into the Ministry of the Economy, then by participating in the presidential campaign, and finally by integrating his cabinet into the Elysée before enter the government. For certain companions from the beginning, furious while witnessing from afar the maneuvers of these left wing ministers, Beaune’s behavior is all the more inexcusable as he is not a simple rallyist of the last hour, but a former collaborator of the head of state. And a “Mormon” doesn’t commit regicide. Not even a flick. Point. The forty-year-old always felt that this early proximity gave him as much right as others to express his disagreements, especially as the center of gravity of Macronie shifted towards the right. Do they deprive themselves, the Darmanins, the Le Maires, of asserting their differences, of biting the yellow line, whenever they want? Not only does the left wing lack a chest and a megaphone, but in addition, nothing is given to it when it tries to create the balance of power. With big, very big hooves, of course… The feeling of injustice is often bad advice.
During his vacation in the Alpilles and Marseille, the Minister of Transport had time to ruminate. Time, too, to speak on the phone with Elisabeth Borne and especially Emmanuel Macron. If he does not wish to speak out about his conversations with the Head of State, in his entourage, we swear that he has not suffered any reframing or reprimands from the executive couple, even if the President of the République made it known that he had very little taste for the lamentations of his ministers. Clément Beaune is obviously aware of being in an unfavorable situation with the upcoming reshuffle; especially if, as almost all members of the government are convinced, Elisabeth Borne is fired and replaced by a Prime Minister from the right.
So he decided to give an interview to Parisian from the start of the school year to “close the sequence” and “twist the caricatures”; to the idea, propagated by an advisor to the Château, that he would have fomented this “puputsch”. But, also, to proclaim loud and clear that he wishes to remain in government, despite the immigration law, the carving up of the AME, the resentments, the frustrations. Are we more efficient inside than outside? In this case, in a ministry rather than in a red MP chair? Clément Beaune seems to think so, he who intends to reorient the rest of the five-year term towards the fundamentals of macronism: Europe, ecology, economic reforms and the fight against discrimination. “I can’t see Beaune giving up his car and his office on his own,” squeaks another left-wing minister. Everyone will have their own idea.
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