The president of the Pays-de-la-Loire regional council is one of the names that have been rumored for a few days to succeed Jean Castex at Matignon. Plausible hypothesis?
Emmanuel Macron is expected to appoint his new Prime Minister in the coming days. While the Head of State has decided to take his time for this difficult choice, conjectures are rife. Among the names that we blow, that of Christelle Morançais, the current president of the Pays-de-la-Loire region, vice-president of the Les Républicains party. Does Christelle Morançais have the right profile for the job? Here is a little more about this hypothetical candidate.
A member of the UMP (former name of the Republicans) since 2002, she became an active activist in 2011, during Nicolas Sarkozy’s second presidential campaign. After running for several unsuccessful terms, she was elected to the Pays-de-la-Loire regional council in 2015, of which she became the second vice-president. On October 19, 2017, following the resignation of the president of the regional council Bruno Retailleau, she took over and became the first woman president of Pays-de-la-Loire. She was re-elected to this post after the 2021 regionals, which her list won in a triangular with more than 46% of the vote, nearly twelve points ahead of the union list of the left and environmentalists.
an LR macro compatible
Why would Christelle Morançais be considered for the post of Prime Minister of Emmanuel Macron? First of all, according to many sources close to the President of the Republic, the intention of the latter is to appoint a woman. The position has in fact only been entrusted to men since the short term of Edith Cresson, between 1991 and 1992.
The results of the 2021 regional election attest to it, Christelle Morançais is a popular political figure in her region. Moreover, although a member of the Republicans, she appears to be macro-compatible: certainly, she was the spokesperson for Valérie Pécresse during the presidential campaign, but that did not prevent her, from the result of the second round of the election, to publicly rejoice at Emmanuel Macron’s victory over Marine Le Pen. Better than that, she called in a press release to the rally behind the re-elected president: “I am a right-wing woman, I am attached to my convictions, but I consider that, in the extremely tense context in which we live, it is necessary to know reach out, come together and open up,” she wrote on the evening of the second round. “Nothing would be worse than ideological blindness, denial of reality or the taste for revenge… Emmanuel Macron now has the responsibility of uniting the country. It is up to us to help him build the unity that France so much need,” she added.
Another clue to her proximity to Macronie: Christelle Morançais appeared close to Edouard Philippe during the regional campaign in 2021. We then saw her, on June 13, 2021, drinking a beer on the terrace in La Baule with the former Prime Minister of Emmanuel Macron.
“It’s just speculation”
Is Christelle Morançais really on the list of contenders for Matignon? “There was zero contact, it’s just speculation,” said the relatives of the vice-president of the Republicans, April 27 in Ouest France. The next day, traveling in Sarthe, the regional president evaded the questions asked of her on the subject: “I will not make any comment on this subject”, she replied during a visit to Avoise. . Later that day, at a public meeting in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, she said: “People talk a lot about me but there is a lot of speculation. What I can tell you is that I was not called, nor was I at the Élysée in hiding as some may say.
It should also be remembered that certain ministers and relatives of Emmanuel Macron have hinted that the future head of government would rather come from the left, which would disqualify the vice-president of the Republicans. Emmanuel Macron himself has shown his desire to appoint a person with an environmental streak, which is not particularly the case with Christelle Morançais. Two women from the left have already been approached to discuss the position in the last few days and have refused it, according to information from BFMTV and Le Parisien: Valérie Rabault, president of the socialist deputies, and Véronique Bédague , the former chief of staff of Manuel Valls. It remains to be seen whether the Head of State will stick to the intentions he has expressed to anchor his second term more to the left than the first, or whether he will appoint, after Edouard Philippe and Jean Castex, a third Prime Minister. – or a Prime Minister – coming from the Republican party.