“Alone with people around.” Undoubtedly Emmanuel Macron let himself be lulled by this title by rapper Orelsan, which his speech adviser had strongly recommended to him to listen to on the eve of the 2022 presidential campaign. Parliament until the decision to resort to 49.3, the president took up a strange challenge: to decide alone, with people around, therefore – generally of an opinion contrary to his. But isn’t macronism the art of pushing the limits?
Thirteen minutes of absolute solitude, that had never been done. Even in May 2017, when the young elected official walks alone, in the Cour Carrée du Louvre, time stretches less than this April 17, 2023. Locked away in his Elysian thebaid, Emmanuel Macron does not intend to share either the responsibilities or the authority. No member of the government mentioned – by the way, is there a government? -, not even its leader, only mentioned by her function, not by her name, at the very end of the presidential intervention. Here is Elisabeth Borne reduced to the role of small telegraph operator, responsible for “detailing the roadmap”.
So why on earth set a deadline of one hundred days (no doubt a reference to the very informed book by our colleague Ludovic Vigogne, The dayless), and a date for the balance sheet, July 14? Because it is indeed the last hundred days of Elisabeth Borne at Matignon that Emmanuel Macron announced. Barring the spectacular success of the three sites presented as priorities, but let us have the audacity to doubt it. This president likes dates and winks, it has not escaped him that the only time he changed Prime Minister during the Elysian mandate was one day in July 2020… The political blow represented by a replacement of the tenant of Matignon would be zero today, the person concerned understood it well. “Bone resignation”, howled the unions and the opposition so much that there was no longer any question of giving in. But in three months, the president hopes, the act will regain its full value, with a new Prime Minister the five-year term will be relaunched. Illusory reasoning.
By appearing alone in front of the French, by making Elisabeth Borne invisible, he diminishes the extent of the political coup which would consist in replacing her at Matignon on July 14. To believe that no one told him that for someone to serve as a fuse, he must still have been exposed. His resignation will no longer be considered insufficient or useless, it will be qualified as unjust. “Boldness has genius, power, magic”, replied a close friend of the president when asked about this funny bet. In 2023, Goethe could have added: and a certain lack of discernment.