It’s crazy how the dissolution really clarified everything! This second five-year term is definitely like no other. The Attal government hadn’t lasted long, and now Michel Barnier is overthrown by a motion of censure three months after his appointment. François Bayrou finds himself in Matignon, but the crisis never ends, political life enters into something new.
Monaco, memory of a standoff
Emmanuel Macron delivered this Thursday, January 23, the funeral eulogy for Didier Guillaume, his former Minister of Agriculture who became Minister of State of Monaco in September 2024. A position that he almost never obtained… because the French president was reluctant to name him. His proximity to Prince Albert intrigued the head of state too much – Guillaume and Albert had launched the Monte Carlo rally together in the 1970s. The prince had to threaten to appoint a foreigner for Emmanuel Macron to finally validate the choice of Didier Guillaume.
Macron-Valls, the reunion
In 2017, Emmanuel Macron did everything to keep Manuel Valls at bay. This time, he no longer has a choice. The president had his first face-to-face meeting with his new Minister of State, responsible for Overseas Territories, last week. On the sidelines of a council of ministers during which he spoke with the Head of State and the Minister of Regional Planning François Rebsamen, Manuel Valls slipped: “You realize, all three of us were already ministers ten years ago.”
Fabien Roussel retained by his family
“This network is the dregs!” Fabien Roussel also wanted to leave X on January 20. He opened up about it to his PCF friends… who dissuaded him. This Thursday, January 23, he still registered on the Bluesky network.
Le Pen is not Trump
A business leader asked someone close to Marine Le Pen: “When will there be a French Trump?” The answer was quick: “When France becomes Texas.” In other words, it is stupid to want to imitate here the recipes that have been so successful for the American president.
Questions about the veil at the RN
To reverse or not the party’s desire to ban the wearing of the veil in public spaces? The subject is debated within the National Rally. Already during the 2022 presidential campaign, Marine Le Pen had maintained a voluntary vagueness, assuring on April 14 (on the set of BFMTV) that “the ban on wearing the veil” was “essential”, before ensuring around ten days later, during a trip to Vaucluse, that it was a “complex problem” and that she was not “obtuse”.
The measure appeared in the party’s program, via a bill aimed at fighting “Islamist fundamentalism”. “I think there will soon be a debate on the subject, assures a deputy. It is a question of seeing how we could convert this measure. Eric Ciotti proposes for example the ban on minors, that could be an interesting avenue …”
In the European Parliament, Eastern Christians unite the rights
Wednesday January 22, in the European Parliament, representatives of the right and the French far right, who sit in different groups, buried the hatchet around a common cause: the creation of an intergroup “Chrétiens du Middle East.” There are represented the National Rally via the presidency of Thierry Mariani, Reconquête, with the vice-presidency of Sarah Knafo, the ECR group within which members of Marion Maréchal’s party sit, and even the PPE, a group which hosts the delegation of LR MEPs. The initiative is notably led by Charles de Meyer, founder of the SOS Chrétiens d’Orient association, secretary general of the intergroup.
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