This is always what a showman fears most: empty aisles. Why would my audience no longer be there? Monday evening, Emmanuel Macron learned through an indiscretion that Eric Ciotti did not want to honor the invitation to the new meeting with the president on Friday. The boss of LR has not yet announced it, but it is true. Suddenly, the head of state called him to check. Tuesday morning, it was the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, who tried to dissuade Eric Ciotti from boycotting. In vain.
A hostile room turns around; a deserted room leaves you speechless. Emmanuel Macron loves face-to-face meetings since he is the star: yesterday, the big debate, in 2019, in front of these mayors who came with their pointed questions and left with their exhaustive answers (we remember his long explanations presidential elections on the fate of a maternity ward in Bernay in Eure); today the meetings in Saint-Denis with the party leaders, who inevitably gravitate around him.
“Emmanuel Macron confuses politics with pulling a rabbit out of his hat. Saint-Denis 1 was very successful, but there cannot be a successful episode 2,” observes a former friend. For the moment, those absent from act 2, Manuel Bompard, Olivier Faure, Eric Ciotti, are seen more than those present – in a small way, they would ask to be reimbursed for the first show.
Because everyone had let themselves be taken a little by the actor’s talents. All ? Even Manuel Bompard (LFI) admits it half-heartedly: “He’s really a seducer. A huckster even. He’s capable of selling a washing machine to someone who already has two.” Eric Ciotti (LR) recognizes this in turn: “The scenario was not poorly designed. We were the pawns of a strategy.” But he did not appreciate the communication that followed, a production signed by the Elysée according to him, the virtual sanctification of Jordan Bardella.
“Macron is a war machine!”
The most enthusiastic were on the verge of standing up to applaud. Hervé Marseille, the president of the UDI: “Emmanuel Macron is at ease on almost everything, he is a war machine! Those who have sought him out on a subject quickly realize that it is not easy , as much as we can make accusations in front of activists, he, the financial inspector, will dismantle the thing with three spoonfuls and then move on to another subject.”
Others noticed his self-control, for example when Olivier Faure launched into praise of Michel Rocard, forgetting a little quickly that he was the Prime Minister of all 49.3, or his stoicism when Jordan Bardella told him almost lectured: “Mr. President, I wanted to tell you, the French consider that governments, not only this one, lack flesh. You should be very happy that we exist and that we do what we “we’re doing it, be happy that we’re getting back these people who believe that we at least can change things. The day they won’t even believe in us anymore…” Some smiled when they saw the president alternately sitting, then standing at the time to comment on military maps dedicated to Ukraine.
Hats off to the artist? Except that it wasn’t exactly supposed to be a one-man show and the participants aren’t the type to want to remain speechless. They too want to be actors in their own right. In his letter justifying his non-participation, Eric Ciotti thus recalls the merits of the counter-budget presented last month by LR. But this is not what will fix everyone, because the operation has remained in the throat of the first circle at the Elysée: “We are looking for a rationality in the Republicans that they have lost for a long time! They were able to present in the same week amendments for 150 billion in additional spending and a counter-budget to adorn themselves with the virtues of seriousness… The same week!” No more laughing: just before, Eric Ciotti had wanted the advantageous tax convention linking Paris and Doha to be denounced. “It was doubly bizarre, points out this close friend of Emmanuel Macron, it is a text wanted by Nicolas Sarkozy, and it was not necessarily the ideal moment at a time when Qatar is the obligatory intermediary for the release of the hostages detained in Gaza.”
Haro on the star or on the participants? If the new show is not up to par, would it be more because of the participants than the star? It would be a little hasty to forget the propensity, described by an old acquaintance, of Emmanuel Macron to “hear everyone, but listen to no one”. “Pitifully monarchist,” says Manuel Bompard. The king is naked, the president no longer has a rabbit in his hat.
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