Chapter 1. The superhero and dummies
“There is no subject of paternity!”. This December 7, at the end of the afternoon, Emmanuel Macron repeats it to some of his ministers, just before a dinner of heads with the tenors of the majority. He knows that if the pension reform is carried through to completion, regardless of the concessions made to the trade unions or to the right, he will be the demiurge. And if she fails, he will be the culprit. This is why, for the President of the Republic, it is not the 65 years, written blue on white and in bold on page 13 of his presidential program, which constitute “a totem” – “It was above all that of Alexis Kohler…”, deciphers a member of the government – but the project itself. The marker of his mandate, the remedy against any chiraquisation lawsuit. Is it still, despite the wear and tear of the time spent at the top of the State, despite the absence of an absolute majority in Parliament, despite the fatigue of the country, despite the forces of conservatism, able to “transform” France? Would it be to modernize it? One of his privileged interlocutors said it in his own way: “I have the impression that there is a gap between his desire for action and transformation, which is total, and the reality of the political climate.”
Whatever. Emmanuel Macron has decided to play his second term in six months. “Six months as uncertain as they are decisive”, recognizes a minister in Bercy, both in the ability of the Head of State to modify the political balance and in the mark he will leave for his posterity. Pensions, immigration, implementation of the unemployment insurance reform, overhaul of the health system, renewable energies, end of life, institutions… The five-year term will be reformist or it will not be, it was the promise of the president-candidate . The first half of 2023 will decide, did he have a choice? To several of his relatives he has sufficiently reassured him: either the most difficult measures are taken by the end of the summer and ratified by the end of the year, or… nothing will happen. Everyone around him admits it: 2024 will be swallowed up by the European elections, beyond which new alliances will be difficult to forge, then the Olympic Games, not to mention the race for ambitious little horses which will intensify for the succession.
At the conclusion of his interview with Elisabeth Borne on Friday January 6, aimed at deciding the final arbitrations of the pension reform, Emmanuel Macron insisted that everything be “square”. The Head of State hates nothing so much as the feelings of hesitation and delayed reaction. “He is the first to be aware that he is and will be accountable for all of this”, indicates one of those who have followed him since 2016. This is no doubt why he has multiplied again, in recent weeks, the rants when the boat rocked: from load shedding to the controllers’ strike at Christmas, to the toll-free numbers which he claims “to be fed up” in front of the bakers to whom he addressed his wishes on January 5. The country, stretched by the global rise in prices, is witnessing the return of the hyperpresident to ground height and slaps, going so far as to test himself, he says, the 0 800… “The Elysée, plus that the president himself is in the process of setting up a communication strategy presenting him from above, in the camp of real people who suffer, while next to him his techno ministers would advise more or less well, squeaks a member government. From now on, on each subject, we come to explain that the president was angry to put everything back on track, that he is a superhero next to dummies. It’s stupid. It works once , twice, but people never really dissociate the action of the government and that of the president.”
Even if in the Murat salon of the Elysée, during the first Council of Ministers of the year, Emmanuel Macron called on his government not to “give in to the professionals of misfortune”, he has already anticipated the disputes against the reform of the retreats, of which no one knows in what forms they will manifest themselves most violently. However, his entourage advocates a form of optimism. Even leaves the idea that, compared to the original project, this pension reform at the center of all the debates is not bold enough to put the head of the president on the block. “If you had told me in March 2020, when the Covid forced confinement, that we were playing our skin within six months, I would have taken your word for it, but today, that is not the case” , assures one of the ministers among his relatives. Those to whom he has given his instructions in recent weeks all draw a common conclusion: even if the blockages momentarily asphyxiate the country, Emmanuel Macron has been chomping at the bit for too long to back down. “There is not a world where, in a second term that will define his legacy, the president will let go, insists a Macronist leader. He can burn his Prime Minister, he can burn his ministers, but he will go all the way. “
Chapter 2. Elisabeth Borne: proving her added value
Does it smell scorched? If there is one that burned throughout the last weekend, it is the phone of Elisabeth Borne. Before the presentation of the project with great fanfare, on January 10, the ministers concerned from near and far each received a phone call – some even several – from their boss who wanted to give a final overview of their respective aspects. before the bomb was dropped. “She is one of those people at the level of hallucinating perfectionism, who want to control everything. Everything, absolutely everything”, whispers a member of the government benevolently. It is that the Prime Minister has no room for error, or even the slightest vacillation. And this on two counts. Not only is it to her that Emmanuel Macron has entrusted the perilous mission of carrying out “the totem” of his five-year term, but above all, the head of state has given in to many of his wishes.
How many “PM”, excluding cohabitation, can claim to have pocketed three victories in the space of a few weeks on such a crucial issue? The non-registration of the reform in the social security finance bill last fall, that is it, at least in part. The one-month extension of the consultations? Her again. Landing on 64 and accelerating the Touraine reform, as it should be… you guessed it. Faced with an impatient President of the Republic, the former Minister of Labor went to tear with her teeth the method with which she wanted to wage the battle. But without ever staging the slightest opposition with the Elysée.
“She has a tough style, the meetings are not always funny, but she is a real negotiator, says another minister. Basically, she carries with her a fairly traditional social-democratic software: she is someone who wants deals and no excessive hassle.” And if, in the end, the pension reform is adopted without clashes or 49.3, it is up to her and no one else than the president will owe it. During the dinner of the majority on December 7 at the Elysée, around an Emmanuel Macron who seemed to have stopped his idea on a departure at 65, the boss of Renaissance, Stéphane Séjourné, warned: “We should explain why we are moving now that no one is asking us to move. If we move, someone has to pay, either the right which voted to leave at 64 in the Senate, or the social partners. Elisabeth Borne, who is often described as neutral and observant during these feasts, has decided: even if you have to be patient, she will seek the voices of Eric Ciotti and his troops. So much the worse for Laurent Berger and the CFDT, which she nevertheless spared and hoped for.
Before the summer, when the National Assembly had just been installed, she slipped in these few lucid words: “We are crazy if we say that 100% of Emmanuel Macron’s program must be applied.” As a good engineer, Elisabeth Borne has a sense of priorities. The next six months are for her the biggest challenge of her political career. She has, since her arrival at Matignon, agreed to be a fuse. This is even why she was appointed and she fought to be and then remain at the head of the government. But the fuse has no desire to burn out: it wants to show its usefulness.
Find the second part of our great story Tuesday, January 10 on our site and our application.