Is it because of the pressure which rises slowly but surely, with a handful of minutes of appearing in front of the cameras? The presence, extremely rare, of the entirety – or almost – of its team in the Ambassadors’ lounge? Of an exhaustion of several weeks, that few could stem like her? Maybe all at once. This Wednesday morning at the Elysee, Elisabeth Borne seems a bit dull in the eyes of several of her ministers, meeting in Council before she presents the long-awaited government roadmap for the coming months. She refuses to take the floor for her introductory speech, which follows the introductory remarks of the Head of State seated opposite her; she hardly says a word the rest of the time, until its conclusion. In preview, the members of the government have the pleasure of listening to the calendar drawn up by their head: “She is in a phase in which she is again very mechanical, she has been as academic with us as at the desk of the press room, laments a government heavyweight No one reacted to his presentation, it was a bit down.” Within the executive, one of his most fervent supporters in the spring storm also notes, pained, that the wind may be turning in the wrong direction: “She lost the fishing, she no longer has the gritted. I found her extinct, it’s difficult for her at the moment.”
And for good reason. Elisabeth Borne’s mission, entrusted by the President of the Republic during his speech on April 17, is tinged with a certain perversity. The tenant of Matignon has, for days, in perpetual exchange with the Château, built a program of construction sites, measures, bills, decrees and ordinances by 2024… which she may well not set to music itself. “Next July 14 should allow us to make a first assessment”, announced Emmanuel Macron to the French posted in front of their television: these are words that sounded, for several companions of the Head of State, like an expiration date. “One Hundred Days” to redesign. “One Hundred Days” as a last CDD.
“He puts everyone in tension, to make people feel insecure”
Certainly, the president likes nothing so much as to take his world on the wrong foot. Especially since, when it comes to appointments, crucial choices of men and women, manager Macron tends to hesitate, even procrastination. Only, as an adviser from the Elysée breathes, the leader is more of a Julyist than a Septembrist: reorganizing the government architecture before the torpor of summer allows the device to be broken in before the heat of the new school year. Edouard Philippe, dismissed on July 3, is well placed to confirm this. But what does it matter if Emmanuel Macron presses the button on the national holiday or not: until then, the threat of the ax weighs on the shoulders of the members of the government. The expression “to be on borrowed time” has never been so aptly named. “He acted in this way exactly for that: to put everyone in tension, to insecure, it is absolutely not a problem for him, he is used to the fact, deciphers a minister in sight. Inevitably, he creates uncertainty; stress for some, ambitions for others. But, in both cases, it all causes nonsense.”
In the viewfinder, in particular: the zealous exit of Bruno Le Maire on BFM TV on social aid “sent back to the Maghreb or elsewhere”. And, among the ambitious, the inevitable Gérald Darmanin: the Minister of the Interior, with tumultuous relations with Elisabeth Borne, has struggled in recent days, before seeing his plans thwarted by the announcement of the postponement to fall of the Immigration Act. In the entourage of No. 3 of the government, we are subtly pointed out that the theme “strengthening the republican order” only appears in the fourth part – out of four… – of the roadmap presented by the Prime Minister, while the subject “came at the top of the chapter for the President of the Republic”. “The subject has undoubtedly dropped in the priorities…”, we quip in the corridors of Beauvau. And we are only at the beginning of May…
Everyone, far from it, does not have the political weight nor the media surface of the executive officers. The day after the famous address to the French, an adviser to Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace readily conceded: “The risk of a hundred days is eighty-eight days with a puppet government.” Especially when the president arrogates to himself the legitimate right to take charge of all major announcements and to saturate the bandwidth with his numerous trips. How many times have we heard in the mouth of secondary ministers “we have integrated from the start that we are on fixed-term contracts”, followed by “with my file, normally, I should still be in the game”… What could be better than the Coué method to try to reassure yourself.
But to the uncertainty could soon be added a feeling of frustration: invited, too, to do the after-sales service of the roadmap, the members of the government, like Pap Ndiaye Gare de Lyon, are heckled by a concert of saucepans on each of their trips to the regions. “At the moment, it is better to have a good chief of staff, because we think about it three times before setting up a trip, jokes a minister. We look in depth at the mapping of the places, where we go, where are the exit doors from the back… The goal is to avoid bad images and, if possible, to make sure not to make a fool of yourself.” The most resistant cash in, others, on the other hand, appreciate this role of cannon fodder less and less. But who knows if, after July 14, they won’t miss these improvised symphonies?