In politics, the sense of sacrifice is important. Laurent Wauquiez understood this well, when, on Wednesday, September 18, in a final poker move, he called Alexis Kohler, the Secretary General of the Elysée: “There has to be a balance, we can’t have all the major ministries: you take me to the Interior and we leave you Bercy.” In politics, the sense of hierarchy is important. Michel Barnier is Prime Minister, responsible for forming a government, has Laurent Wauquiez forgotten this?
If the new tenant of Matignon was still hesitant, here is something to make his choice easier: at Beauvau, you need a trustworthy man, and the one who calls the Elysée behind his back does not seem to fit the identikit. Didn’t François Fillon and Valérie Pécresse, with whom Barnier spoke by telephone, insist on the “reliability” of Bruno Retailleau? Since the first hours of this singular cohabitation, the leader of the LR senators has shown a calm and solidity that is reassuring. “If Laurent wants Beauvau, I’ll step aside,” he also repeated to the head of government. Yes, in politics, the sense of sacrifice is important: here is Bruno Retailleau Minister of the Interior.
An unanswered text message and a photo
So much for Nicolas Sarkozy’s advice. According to him, real political power lies in Justice. At Place Vendôme, we confront the real issues, the blockages… The former president said this to Bruno Retailleau during a telephone conversation about ten days before his nomination, when his name was circulating for the position of Keeper of the Seals. He said it again to one of his visitors more recently and in more… Sarkozyian terms. “National Education, for example, is boring: when you do something stupid, you have 100,000 teachers in the street. In Vendôme, you have 8,000 judges, nobody cares!” But the shadow of Clemenceau looms over the Interior, and for Retailleau, who in 2017 sent a letter to Emmanuel Macron asking for the organisation of “an official event commemorating the action of this great figure of freedom and French unity”, this is priceless.
For a seat to be free, it still has to be empty. You don’t wake a sleeping cop. How then do you make a Minister of the Interior understand that he’s going to have to pack his bags? Gérald Darmanin sent a congratulatory text message to Michel Barnier after his appointment. No response. Then he wanted to share with him some sensitive and urgent files. No response. Emmanuel Macron likes to ask questions to which he knows the answers. On Friday the 13th, he had lunch with the new head of government, who had been in office for eight days. Did he see the Minister of the Interior? No. The president was surprised. In the hours that followed, Gérald Darmanin finally had news from Matignon: he was invited to come the next day. “We’re going to take a photo”: Michel Barnier welcomed him, and then he congratulated him by tweet for his action during the Olympic Games. Then the two men sat down. Gérald Darmanin had a file with some sensitive notes. Now he is asked what makes a good Minister of the Interior. “The Minister of the police more than the Minister of the police, the Minister of the gendarmes more than the Minister of the gendarmerie”, replies the outgoing minister, not unhappy to become, after Roger Frey and Raymond Marcellin, the longest serving Minister of the Interior. After border control, he wants to go elsewhere, he spoke about it to Emmanuel Macron, he is now speaking about it to Michel Barnier. Who turns a deaf ear: “What can I do for you?” Obviously, nothing, but the president perhaps?
The President’s Attempt
The reserved domain covers two prestigious ministries: the Quai d’Orsay and Defense. The second is occupied by one of Darmanin’s best friends, Sébastien Lecornu. On Thursday, September 19, the president tries to plead the cause of the turbulent resigning Minister of the Interior by suggesting that he be installed in Foreign Affairs. “He will do the job,” Emmanuel Macron essentially says to Michel Barnier. “And having him outside is not necessarily a good solution for you.” Immediate and firm is the protest of the host of Matignon who cannot digest Darmanin’s statements on supposed tax increases: “We cannot reveal private exchanges by distorting them.” These two will not work together. Will they cross paths on September 29 in Tourcoing? Gérald Darmanin takes advantage of his Saturday discussion to invite the Prime Minister, but he knows full well that people from the North prefer round bodies. Not exactly Michel Barnier’s profile.
Who appoints the Minister of the Interior? There is a Pasqua case law. In 1986, to form the first cohabitation government in the history of the Fifth Republic, Jacques Chirac managed to impose something on François Mitterrand – this would not be so frequent. As much as the head of government admits that the president has a say in the appointment of the holder of Foreign Affairs and Defense, he considers that the Interior should be under his sole authority. He promised the portfolio to Charles Pasqua, which arouses some reluctance on the part of Mitterrand. Chirac defends his choice, insists on his “republicanism”. The president, deadpan: “With Pasqua at the Interior, the ministers will no longer dare to telephone each other.” Jean-Louis Bianco, Secretary General of the Elysée, will recount: “Seeing that Chirac was keen on Pasqua, the president does not suggest any other name for the Interior.”
Demand versus brutality
Almost forty years later, Gerard Larcher can confirm Michel Barnier in his certainties: the Interior is the choice of the Prime Minister, “which does not exclude discussing with the President”. And the head of government has had clear ideas from day one: he wants a man of the right at Beauvau. Laurent Nuñez, who was Secretary of State for Christophe Castaner, would be too obvious a victory for the Elysée. No, the right believes itself, the right wants to be at home at Beauvau. It has not forgotten the way in which Nicolas Sarkozy transformed a trap into a springboard – appointed by Jacques Chirac in 2002 to tackle the problem of insecurity, he took advantage of it to build his stature before the 2007 presidential election.
Laurent Wauquiez knows it. And then succeeding his best enemy, Gérald Darmanin, would be a gourmet’s delight. Yes, he wants the Interior, and would even accept a title of Minister of State… But between the Savoyard and the Ponot, there is some friction on the line. The former thinks a little that he lost the LR primary in 2021 because of the latter; the latter considers that the former is at Matignon only because he wanted to be. Ten days ago, an exchange between the two went badly. “It was brutal, I was brutal,” Michel Barnier would admit afterwards.
The next day, the head of a government that does not yet exist dots the i’s: “There will be no Minister of State in my team.” At the end of the videoconference meeting, Laurent Wauquiez launches a daring: “And for me?” The Prime Minister does not answer. But one of his friends speaks for him, who then confides: “In terms of feasibility, it’s complicated. LR in Beauvau is a deterrent for Renaissance, while Wauquiez in Beauvau is ten times more so.”
“Emmanuel Macron does not embody, he interprets”
In 1986, François Mitterrand had whispered to Jacques Chirac: “If you have difficulty refusing portfolios to your friends, you just have to put them on my back.” Emmanuel Macron did not have to push back Laurent Wauquiez as his name was already struggling to cross the Seine. Expected at the turning point by Renaissance, by the centrists, and by the entire Assembly. “I warn you, I am even harsher than my wife!” whispered to him this summer the president of the PS group Boris Vallaud, husband of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, former regional opposition councilor in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
In any case, when it comes to choosing the Interior Ministry, Emmanuel Macron is not far from being the worst manager. He sent Gérard Collomb, who only dreamed of a portfolio of the City and Regional Planning, to the slaughter; he gave up on appointing Jean Castex in the face of the outcry from some of his friends; he undermined Christophe Castaner, taking two weeks to confirm a decision that had already been leaked; he was about to propel Jean-Michel Blanquer when Gérald Darmanin burst in.
The position is obviously sensitive, unique in its kind within a government. “The Minister of the Interior knows everything about the movements of everyone,” recalls a former incumbent. Traditionally, he is close to the president. The situation today is anything but traditional. To Nicolas Sarkozy, Emmanuel Macron recently said that he had no opposition in principle to Bruno Retailleau. He is a true opponent of the president, no doubt about that. “His strength at the start was to capture the imagination of the right: he understood the importance of symbolic victory, observed the Vendéen a few years earlier. The right needs this incarnation: he understands all that. That means he has intelligence and knows how to find his honey and his way. But he comes up against a limit: he does not embody, he interprets.” He will see the actor up close, every week in the council of ministers.
Bruno Retailleau in Beauvau, finally, the difficulties begin. Gabriel Attal has already warned the Prime Minister: out of the question for the Renaissance deputies to vote for a new immigration law. But at LR they are already insisting: only “an overinterpretation of article 45 by the constitutional council, and by one vote, was worth censure” of several articles of the last bill, it is a question of taking them up again without too much delay. And what about the law on the orientation and programming of the Ministry of the Interior? Is it therefore the right that will have to accept its postponement for budgetary reasons, by trying to justify itself in the name of the return to budgetary balances, which also appears in its legislative pact? Gérald Darmanin used to say in Beauvau: “What we ask of a minister is to bring in nuts…”