The conversation didn’t last more than a minute, or very little. In other circumstances, a brief SMS would have sufficed, but when we are about to appoint a minister, we call. “It will be Overseas, Minister of State. As we said.” Because they had said it to each other, more than once. François Bayrou and Manuel Valls have been chatting for days about this burning issue in French overseas territories, especially since Cyclone Chido ravaged Mayotte. The idea has been floating around in Bayrou’s head for months. Last summer, when Emmanuel Macron was constantly consulting to find a Prime Minister, François Bayrou was scribbling lists of names attached to ministries on the corner of the table. Valls… “OM”, for Overseas. He had whispered the idea to Valls, casually but enough for the desire to germinate in the person concerned’s head.
Nothing happens by chance, neither that nor the interview that the socialist gave the following November 8, in The Parisian. He undermines Emmanuel Macron’s policy in New Caledonia by accusing him of having “threw down thirty-six years of dialogue and progress”. And to torpedo “the imbecile, irresponsible and criminal stubbornness” of the President of the Republic. No one would have imagined that the head of state would accept Valls joining the government after these words, and what’s more with this portfolio. “Did he have a choice?”, smiles someone close to Bayrou.
The time is no longer for the amateurs who made Macronie proud, but for the “heavyweights”. This is why Bayrou was so keen on Valls, on this position, precisely: he grew up in the shadow of Michel Rocard and Lionel Jospin, watching closely the management of Matignon’s agreements in 1988 with the first, and again closer with the second, ten years later, for the Nouméa agreements. “The time for adjustment variables on this ministry is over, justifies a soldier from Bayrou. We are not going to look for Valls because he is a man of the left, but we are going to look for the republican figure, the figure of authority, the former Prime Minister, capable of taking political control of this overseas issue.”
Too authoritarian, too “identitarian”
At the twilight of his five-year term, for lack of blackbirds, Emmanuel Macron eats thrushes, and his hat by accepting the arrival of Manuel Valls. However, he had always refused it since 2017. Between the two men, it is the story of the other stab of François Hollande’s five-year term. “He methodically betrayed me,” the former socialist president confided one evening in August 2016, who had long been deluded about the overflowing ambitions of the young intriguer. What should Valls say then, who was even the recruiter of the future conspirator? In 2014, he insisted on appointing him Minister of the Economy when Hollande wanted a “grand Bercy” for his friend Michel Sapin. The affair quickly turns sour. Macron will criticize Valls for having done everything to use 49.3 on the growth bill, known as the “Macron law”, when he was convinced of having a majority to vote for the text. This is because at the time, there cannot be two suns in the same social-liberal sky. The Prime Minister clearly sees the growing popularity of his minister, and fears it all the more as the latter is preparing a presidential candidacy on the sly. Emmanuel Macron will dispossess Manuel Valls of his political destiny, while François Hollande has already announced that he will not be a candidate for his succession.
The two men compete for the Rocardian heritage, and it is the impetuous young man who will win the day. Macron, the complete liberal that his nemesis is not, considered too authoritarian, even too “identitarian”. Everything that constituted Manuel Valls and no longer constitutes him makes the networks of Rocardian and Strauss-Khanian socialist elected officials turn away. A long series of humiliations followed. The former tenant of Matignon, who at least hoped for a ministry, will be ignored for this, and for the legislative investitures too. Support does not equal inauguration, the entourage of the fresh president understands. Some lieutenants recall in courageous anonymity that En Marche, “it is not the Spanish inn”. The Barcelona native clenches his jaw. It will take the intervention of François Bayrou to prevent a candidate labeled LREM from being opposed to him, in Evry, his stronghold. There is some Villefort in Emmanuel Macron, the king’s prosecutor who condemns Edmond Dantès without trial – “In politics, you don’t kill a man: you remove an obstacle, that’s all.”
“The Essence of the Traitor”
“I am not vengeful,” assures Manuel Valls, who is not a count of anything, even less of Monte Cristo. “Seeing him as Macron’s minister who didn’t want him is a fleeting pleasure,” laughs one of his close friends nonetheless. Overseas, this “mini-Matignon”, as Jacques Chirac said. As for the cries of anger from the left, “which is no longer his” since the rebels who hate him and make fun of the insults of which he is the target took control, so be it. On the morning of December 24, on France Inter, the face of the new Minister for Overseas Territories nevertheless showed resentment. Lips are curled, eyebrows furrowed and gaze fixed on the table. Impassive and closed listening to the listener who calls him a “turd”. He saw others, invectives, vituperations of all kinds, verbal and even physical slaps in January 2017 when a young onlooker, admirer of Dieudonné, slapped him during a trip to Brittany. The next day, another listener, claimed to be from the left, reacted on the same radio: “There are 66 million of us who want to give it to you.”
Valls, a hated figure, “the essence of a traitor”, is still criticized by the PS from which he was excluded in 2017. He preferred to call for Emmanuel Macron to vote rather than Benoît Hamon, his rival in the primary, unlike his commitment. “The violence of which he is a victim speaks to the stupidity and brutality of society today, and I recognize myself in the Republican political line that he defends, but speaking out in politics also counts. He has greatly undermined his own” , observes the socialist Michaël Delafosse, mayor of Montpellier, critic of Mélenchon, a rising figure in the PS who highlights questions of security and secularism, to the point that some would like to compare him to Valls. Very little for Delafosse: “He once said that politics was a dead language. It was very strong, very fair. But didn’t he help to kill it? There is a code of honor in politics. That gives you credibility.”
Valls drags his ills – the 49.3, the non-compliance with his commitment to support Benoît Hamon after the left-wing primary, his comments on the Roma “who are destined to return to Romania”, he said – and those of others , which he carries on his shoulders. The loss of nationality, this burden which is not his. The story chosen does not care about the details: after the attacks of November 13, 2015, François Hollande, under pressure from the right, sought, in addition to an update of the state of emergency, a major measure which could be supported on both sides of the Hemicycle. It will be the loss of nationality for dual nationals, an idea pushed by Nicolas Sarkozy in particular. At the first Council of Ministers which followed the congress speech, only one minister expressed her reservations – George Pau-Langevin. Manuel Valls is also not seduced by the idea, and initially suggests abandoning it. He fears that this will fracture too much on the left, and in particular the right wing of the PS. Even Emmanuel Macron criticizes the idea.
The first polls will, however, show that the forfeiture is popular, and that a withdrawal of the provision would further damage François Hollande. “Manuel immediately changes his mind because he does not want the president, already so low in the polls, to strain himself a little more with a new renunciation, tells a Valls collaborator to Matignon. He defends the function more than the good man, then he takes care of the dirty work.” Laurent Azoulai, former PS executive and close to Valls, regrets: “François Hollande is never made to take the initiative for the loss of nationality. The father is him, not Manuel.” The Dutch will thank him in their own way, by pushing for the candidacy of Vincent Peillon in the left-wing primary, one more competitor against Valls who opens the path to victory a little more for Benoît Hamon.
Unpopularity as enjoyment
The contempt has done damage. A weapon of massive deterrence, and the resentment is all the more tenacious, even inerasable. For once, François Bayrou and Macronie were careful, in recruiting Valls to the government, to tell the story of the left-wing recruit to better push the PS to its limits. We said it about Didier Migaud, then François Rebsamen and Juliette Méadel, but not about the former Prime Minister. Which hardly moves the latter. He is not attached to the old pink house. He knows that left-wing trials are rife, and that he was one of the first targets. In 2015, Christophe Prochasson, one of the Elysée advisors, was to meet for the first time the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, a certain Aurélien Rousseau. “You’ll see, he’s nice. He’s Valls’ left-wing guarantor,” laughs Boris Vallaud, then deputy secretary general of the President of the Republic. From all this, he made his leather, “his very Teflon”, adds a friend. The hatred of which he is the target has become his political enjoyment. Unpopularity, its priesthood. “It is the condition for the exercise of power,” he repeats in private, referring again and again to his tutelary figure, Georges Clemenceau, also abhorred in his time. The weakness of certain men and women in politics is wanting to be liked too much.
Manuel Valls doesn’t care about this, nor about these socialists who don’t really dare to chat with him, the ex-comrade who has become radioactive. Please, moreover, preserve the anonymity of the few PS deputies who sent him a message of congratulations after his appointment overseas. François Hollande kept in touch, and Aurélien Rousseau wrote to him on December 23. “Good luck,” drummed the second to his ex-boss. “Until censorship!” replied Valls, with a smiling emoji.
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