“In any case, I have never appointed a Prime Minister who supported me”: Emmanuel Macron likes to tell himself stories, perhaps he even believes them. Forgotten is the loyalty of Edouard Philippe, forgotten is the sense of sacrifice of Jean Castex, forgotten is the rectitude of Elisabeth Borne, forgotten is the gratitude of Gabriel Attal. After July 7, he will call a Prime Minister who not only did not support him, but who he did not choose. He will perceive the difference. France torn between its extremes, this is no longer surpassing, it is a passing away. Sunday, June 30, saw the end of the seven-year term of the man who, in his words on the evening of the first day, wanted to write “the page of hope and confidence regained”. Here is the president threatened with being nothing more than a parenthesis. Responsible before the country, guilty before History.
“Short bridle!”
In Matignon, the chair is already empty. At the Elysée, the cup is full: we see “fingerprints” of the Prime Minister and his team in the press. Here, attacks against the president’s men. There, barely whispered questions about the leader’s condition. Gabriel Attal set out on his own. Emmanuel Macron did not inform him of his thoughts on dissolution before June 9? What if the Prime Minister decided to leave on the evening of the second round, July 7, without asking anyone, least of all the President? The Elysée is haunted by this scenario, while the services fear a disinhibition of small groups of the extreme right as well as the extreme left, or even mimetic violence which would spread to certain suburbs. Whatever happens, the head of state will need time, and therefore a Prime Minister who will act as interim minister. “Short bridle!” he insists: he would like to be able to count on his government. Alexis Kohler, the secretary general of the Elysée, is asked to pass on the message, and with him other strategists of the president, all responsible for calming the ambitious and the secessionists. Gérald Darmanin himself announces that he will leave the Ministry of the Interior after the election? Emmanuel Macron storms, this is not up to the moment. The rats are leaving the ship, as for the woodlice dear to Bruno Le Maire… “2.5% in the right-wing primary! Seven years minister thanks to me!”, the president sometimes lets his bitterness show.
The first round of legislative elections makes these outbursts so ridiculous. The time is no longer to put the past behind us, but to put the emerging future into perspective, this “different majority”, he says, that he hopes to see emerge – a bit of the Republican right, a bit of the moderate left. , what remains of Macronists to counterbalance the National Rally and La France insoumise. Friday exchange:
“– And if this coalition is inferior in number to the RN and LFI deputies combined, Mr. President?
– It will not arrive.”
Monday’s verdict: It just might happen.
Projections, what projections?
“Everyone faces their responsibilities before History,” he often repeats at the moment. Who is listening to him? In the future ex-majority, they are especially careful to indicate that they had nothing to do with the decision to dissolve. Gabriel Attal points the finger at Gérald Darmanin, who is quick to pass the buck: he listed hypotheses, nothing else. Edouard Philippe is already far away, tired of always discovering the decisions of the day before the next day: “They will tell us at the end, I imagine.” Bruno Le Maire is already elsewhere: “Emmanuel Macron has been wary of politicians of good faith since the departure.” We are thinking more about May 2027 than July 2024. The new world has aged so much, who is calling for help from the old one. A few days ago, the faithful Julien Denormandie, acolyte from the very beginning and former Minister of Agriculture, was dispatched to study the range of possibilities of a coalition with the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher. Clash of cultures, democratic impasse. Another emissary was invited to approach Valérie Pécresse. The sense of the counter-time.
In Emmanuel Macron’s brain, since June 9, 2024, there has been no doubt. Projections, before pressing the dissolution button? A politician’s trick, surely, to try to calculate the number of seats that the majority could obtain. None are circulating at the Elysée on the evening of the announcement. Only the presidential prediction counts, which must be worth all the truths: given the very short deadlines, victory is possible. Better still, “the absolute majority is within reach,” boasts the head of state. In which election? These early legislative elections are like municipal elections, advances in front of President Gérald Darmanin. Yes, it is like a presidential election, retorts Rachida Dati. Even a minister present does not understand: “So it’s not going straight. A presidential election or municipal elections, it’s not the same.”
Around him, since June 9, 2024, there is anxiety. A friend from the left is astonished: “I have never seen this concern in the country. His decision triggers fear, that is to say the opposite of what any French person expects from his president.” Companions from the time of the conquest, from the first hours, and from the last, here they are all seized by incomprehension; where has this president gone with great promises, capable of uniting and reassuring? He repeats to him: “It was urgent to depressurize.” They think “rout”, “indecency”, and one of them, a former member of the Elysée, sums up for most of them: “Boasting about observing a clarification at the moment is a childish vision of democracy and a complete inability to respect the country in its fragilities and interests. We do not play with the nation.”
Heroes and dreariness
In the moments before the explosion, a few daredevils tried to make him change his mind. Pragmatic and political, one contacted Alexis Kohler: “Are the majority leaders aligned? Was there a debate? No? Then it’s not operational.” Another, on the phone with Emmanuel Macron, relied on benevolence and optimism: “Obviously, all this is difficult, but everything passes. You walked on water then you experienced the yellow vests, an unheard-of explosion, violence… Then we led the European campaign in 2019 and we almost won, and you ended up being re-elected in 2022.” Confident and determined, the president replied: “You don’t feel the country.”
Post-rationalization in Macron’s style: it was dissolution or its doom. His decision, an act of courage. Yes, it had to be dared. “The return of the heroes,” he philosophized when he came to power. “There is in all this a romantic side that is far too developed,” retorts a close friend.
The president is in his world, and this world no longer resembles France. He soliloquies with History. “Courage is being afraid and going anyway.” On the landing beaches, June 6, he is face to face with her. He’s talking about yesterday’s heroes, maybe he’s talking about himself, worse, he’s talking to himself. Later, some of his friends will be convinced of his exhilaration at being the only one who knows what will happen three days later. Play it, enjoy it. On Saturday 8, during the state dinner offered in honor of Joe Biden, he had an aside with Nicolas Sarkozy. This time, it’s not time for secrets; the surprise effect must be maximum. The ex doesn’t like it: “He tells me ‘we’ll see tomorrow what’s going on, what a story’. There’s no point in me going to see him now, for him to sort himself out.”
The president is in his world, and this world no longer resembles France. He dissolves, does he even know that in doing so he tumbles into people’s privacy? We can no longer count the number of weddings canceled at the last minute because town halls will need rooms to organize the two ballots. As the ultimate signature of this gap between Macron’s solitary decisions and the daily life of the French, which will remain one of the hallmarks of his mandates.
“It will end tragically”
Does he feel hatred? Narcissus in his palace, Louis XVI outside, pursued to the rue de Varenne? His friends try to appease him: “We idolize the republican king but as soon as things go wrong, we raise the scaffold”, France lives off its eruptions of anger but has only beheaded one king, and that was so long ago.
In front of an accomplice, Emmanuel Macron prophesies: “It will end tragically.” Was he talking about the country, was he talking about himself? The hatred that some of his people observe, he does not seem to perceive, not now. Yesterday, he couldn’t miss it: the chaotic memorial roaming, then his mannequin burned by rampaging yellow vests. Today, only the vengeful voices coming from his camp resonate in his ears. Selective hearing. “In the surveys, he is infinitely higher than François Hollande at the same time”, we delude ourselves at the Elysée.
This is no longer just a problem of opinion. Tomorrow’s majority, whoever it may be, will have the president in their sights. Cohabitation would require Emmanuel Macron to have a diversity of skills. How to be the guardian of the Constitution, he who has never had the formal meaning of it and who has above all just shown his indifference towards it – it would seem that he has from article 12 which provides for consultations before the dissolution a completely “honorary” conception, as someone would say? Above all, we sense him as an actor, sincere or not, he is no longer a paradox away, Diderot would say. The RN, through its unpreparedness, its slippages, its mistakes, would not fail to offer it many opportunities to come to the front of the stage. Mitterrand first, then Chirac showed the path to rehabilitation. In six months, in a year, in 2032, will those who consider that he threw democracy into the hands of the extreme right believe that he preserved it from its worst excesses?
Cohabitation rhymes with anticipation. Coalition too. In 1986, Mitterrand had planned his ammunition, budget for the Elysée, a slew of appointments in advance. This time, nothing has been prepared. The president jumped out of the plane, he just forgot to take a parachute.
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