A cordial exchange in the heart of summer. Laurent Wauquiez chats with Marc Fesneau, who has just been elected president of the Modem group in the National Assembly. They discuss the election to the perch and the distribution of positions in the chamber. The leader of the Republican Right (DR) is ready to join his voices with those of the central bloc to ensure the re-election of Yaël Braun-Pivet, threatened by the left. “There are three sequences,” the Modem elected official whispers to his counterpart. “The presidency, the governance of the Assembly. For the rest, let’s see later.” “That suits me very well,” replies the former regional president. “I don’t want to talk about it.” The rest? A coalition with the Macronists, worn out by seven years in office. Laurent Wauquiez rejects it, anxious to embody the alternation in 2027.
Finally, let’s talk about the rest. Laurent Wauquiez has regained the use of speech thanks to the appointment of Michel Barnier to Matignon. As has a certain appetite. On Tuesday, September 10, a videoconference meeting with the Prime Minister and the head of the LR senators Bruno Retailleau turns sour. The future of the deputy generates tensions. According to several sources, the man wants to obtain the post of Minister of the Interior with the rank of Minister of State and is annoyed by the lack of guarantees from the Savoyard, whom he supported for Matignon. In Laurent Wauquiez’s entourage, we admit a “frank” exchange but overflowing with the fate of the former regional boss. The place of the right in the government architecture and programmatic assurances are said to have fueled the discussion. Wauquiez minister? “Nothing has been decided,” tempers a close friend.
In July, refusal of any “coalition” or “compromise”
Wauquiez minister? This simple question reveals the strategic inflection of the deputy of Haute-Loire. That of a man forced to throw in the trash a scenario written for many years. That of an elected official advancing in a fog as dangerous as a promise of opportunities. On July 7, the air is fresh in Puy-en-Velay. Laurent Wauquiez addresses the press after his victory in the legislative elections. In a martial tone, he rejects any “coalition” or “compromise” with Macronism in his victory speech. The same refusal of the slightest “apparatus agreement” after his election at the head of the DR group. The man wants to keep his distance from a power in agony to build his own political offer. His thesis: any proximity to Macronism is disqualifying with a view to 2027. The French will want alternation, not a substitute for the head of state!
Laurent Wauquiez observes this fragmented assembly with a distant eye. Eyes are fixed on the New Popular Front (NFP) and its endless quest for a candidate for Matignon. He does not pay excessive attention to his predecessor Olivier Marleix’s call for the appointment of a “Prime Minister from the Republicans”. When the premonitory interview is published in THE Figarothe former minister prefers to smile about it. “You warned me, it’s fair game,” he whispers to his colleague. An LR Prime Minister, who can believe it? The party only has 47 deputies left and is bogged down in a legal conflict with Éric Ciotti, guilty of an alliance with the RN. This thesis is drowning in indifference. To a deputy, Laurent Wauquiez confides his prediction: “There will be a technical government without LFI, which will manage current affairs.” The forecast has all the makings of a wish. Three years for nothing. Three years to prepare and gradually take the light.
A strategy to be reviewed
But little by little, this plan is eroding. There are these DR deputies, uncomfortable with the leader’s intransigence. These right-wing voters, who fear the left as much as parliamentary paralysis. He ends up giving ground. In mid-July, he unveils his “legislative pact”, thirteen measures that the right commits to voting for if the new government seizes them. A simple formal concession. The coalition is always no.
But this pact acts like a slow poison. The left is uniting against Emmanuel Macron? At least the right is moving a toe. Nicolas Sarkozy, eternal supporter of a coalition, understood this well. “I do not understand the position that consists of proposing a minimum program to the President of the Republic while affirming that he wants to remain outside the government team that would be in charge of implementing it,” the former president said at the end of August in The Figaro. False naivety is an art. “The analysis is strong because it is simple and understandable,” a friend confided to Laurent Wauquiez. The person concerned agreed, but did not give up.
Emmanuel Macron should always be wary. The man has a curious relationship with the Republicans, whom he tortures with pleasure, like a child pulling the legs off a fly. From July, an LR advisor questions the game of the head of state. “He can take pleasure in setting the fire by appointing Xavier Bertrand, it is necessary anticipate this.” Laurent Wauquiez did not do so. By his choice, the president has driven the final nail into the coffin of his “plan”.
“He is completely subject to events”
When the head of state brought together the LR bigwigs on September 3 to discuss the Bertrand option, Laurent Wauquiez resigned himself. His deputies were in favor of appointing an LR, he could only go along with the movement. The president had tied his hands. He had barely pushed aside his rival from Hauts-de-France by assuring the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, that the latter was condemned to censure. So it would be Barnier. “Laurent helped us in the final stretch,” the lucky winner would privately say. On the right, this change of heart was observed with fatalism. “He was completely subject to events,” mocked one deputy. An LR executive preferred to salute “a welcome capacity for change.”
Here is the man involved in this once-hated coalition. The DR group should soon declare itself in the majority, after initially registering in the opposition. At least this precarious partnership is not an absorption of the right by Macronism but a more balanced game. A balancing act too. Laurent Wauquiez is subject to a duty of loyalty to Michel Barnier, but must be careful not to dilute his political offer in costly compromises. If LR falls into the “at the same time” category, the RN could sweep the board, it is feared on the right. “We need a right-wing policy with more security and less immigration,” he warned in Annecy during the LR parliamentary days.
His destination is still unknown. The right is lost in conjectures on the advantages and disadvantages of a government appointment. Doesn’t the man need light? Isn’t it dangerous to let others take it in his place? “The media system is such that you have to be in charge or the first opponent. The rest doesn’t exist,” notes a regular interlocutor of Emmanuel Macron. But Laurent Wauquiez would not be a minister of absolute majority, with the related ideological latitude. Would he therefore not be useful to the Assembly, monitoring the legislative pact of LR? The reflection is open around Michel Barnier, where these arguments are put forward and turned around. No one knows what fate the future executive is doomed to, so much does it reinvent the uses of the Fifth Republic. It contains at least one lesson for Laurent Wauquiez. Be careful not to speak too quickly, politics is sometimes more imaginative than you.
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