“Get up and…candidate!” Epiphanies sometimes arise where you least expect them. One Saturday afternoon for example, on a plenary assembly stage, during a round table devoted to Emmanuel Macron’s European assessment, around five armchairs and two coffee tables. Comfortably seated, the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune, the two Renew MEPs Nathalie Loiseau and Valérie Hayer, and the Secretary of State for European Affairs Laurence Boone discuss peacefully and, in fact, rather motionlessly, about the issues and prospects of this Europe that they have pinned to the body. Last to speak, Laurence Boone, suddenly, stood up in the middle of the grandstand in front of the stunned eyes of a good part of the audience. Here is the Minister of the Quai d’Orsay who harangues the crowd and gives a standing ovation to the majority European deputies: “Stand up, applaud them, they have done a hell of a job!” The ten-minute stand-up is appreciated differently among his comrades, but there is at least a consensus on one point: there is one more declared candidate for the head of the list in the next European elections. She is far from the only one…
Is the European campus of the Renaissance party, organized this weekend in Bordeaux, the start of the presidential camp’s campaign? This is the million-euro question, which the numerous executives of the presidential party encountered over two days have difficulty answering. Yes and no. Yes, because we must begin to assert strong ideas in public debate; no, because it is not up to the National Rally to impose its political agenda. “We struggle in long-term campaigns, we have already seen this in the past, while in Blitzkrieg campaigns, brief and intense, we get by,” analyzes Sacha Houlié, the president of the Laws Commission of The national assembly. But behind this artistic blur, in the middle of the ford, ambitions are sharpening: we can no longer count the number of putative leaders who imagine themselves – or are imagined by their supporters – capable of leading the battle for the European elections on 9 next June. The horse race is not just for 2027.
If there is competition, it is largely due to the boss’s hesitations. Not Emmanuel Macron, no, but Stéphane Séjourné, general delegate of Renaissance and president of the Renew group in the European Parliament. The former Élysée advisor “obviously takes precedence”, as the president of the European Affairs Committee of the Assembly Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade explained to L’Express, or even the Minister of Industry Roland Lescure this Saturday . But Séjourné hesitates. “He is aiming for the presidency of the European Parliament,” says one of his friends, and would therefore not want to get involved in the front line, especially since the Versailles resident has been trying for two years to erase his image as an envoy of Emmanuel Macron in Brussels. And then, who knows, a position within the government could well be offered to him one day or another… The strategist should make his decision by the end of the year: by then, clearly- obscure competitors arise.
“You have to know how to take your risk!”
There are those who are campaigning and whose chances seem very slim. Laurence Boone may have reshuffled his team to prepare, take the trouble and – as we have seen – force his rather discreet nature, few Macronist leaders are betting on the Secretary of State. Too inexperienced, not political enough, too unknown to the French, not combative enough to scratch Jordan Bardella in debate… there is no shortage of arguments to remove her from the President of the Republic’s short list. “She’s still in it, but she’s really not far from coming out,” slips someone close to Emmanuel Macron.
And then, there are those who don’t campaign but whose “friends” would like to see them become captain of the boat. Far. Very far. Thus, strangely, several members of the government are pleading for the super boss of Bercy, Bruno Le Maire, to make the European list benefit from his profession and all his talent. “He will make a good candidate, that’s certain,” slips a minister in Bordeaux who we can easily imagine wanting to exfiltrate the potential candidate to succeed Emmanuel Macron. We just need to take clear criteria: who has the greatest notoriety? Who has the most experience in campaigning for years and years? Who is capable of standing up to Bardella? When you aspire to a great national destiny, you have to know how to take your risk!” Well then.
The Minister of the Economy would objectively be a worthy competitor. Without doubt the best. However, not everyone is on the same wavelength. Bruno Le Maire first. Crossed at the Renaissance campus, he repeats it: it’s no, no, triple no. Several months ago, he had already said the same thing to some of his colleagues. Another member of the government, seated near the lake bordering the exhibition center, suddenly displays a six-foot-long grimace on his face. And it’s not because of the blazing sun which violently attacks his forehead…: “Bruno? No, but wait, Bruno is ultra-solo, he doesn’t know how to work in a team! On my subjects, he takes positions without even discussing them first. To lead the list, you need a person who has a sense of the collective, who can lead it, not someone who thinks that being in front is above all putting oneself in Before…”
The five-legged sheep
A name comes back insistently; paradoxically, the echo it provokes is inversely proportional to the enthusiasm it arouses: Thierry Breton. The current European Commissioner for the Internal Market is nevertheless campaigning vigorously. Present at the MoDem summer universities last week, he was also invited to speak this Saturday in Bordeaux. But it is an understatement to say that the experienced man, also technically impeccable, would stand out somewhat among the magma of candidates from other parties: between Jordan Bardella (RN), Manon Aubry (LFI), Marion Maréchal (Reconquête), Marie Toussaint (EELV) and François-Xavier Bellamy (LR), all in their thirties, wouldn’t Jacques Chirac’s former minister appear to have a generational gap? “Unfortunately for him, he embodies the opposite of modernity, the opposite of what we are,” indicates a member of the government. Another, of a more social democratic sensibility, is more cruel: “It’s a fairly technical election, so it remains to be seen. But hey, Breton is still as old as his arteries…” Let’s stop it. youthism for a few minutes. Apart from his year of birth, Thierry Breton has the other fault, in context, of being in Ursula von der Leyen’s current team at the Commission, giving Jordan Bardella the opportunity to directly confront a representative of the European executive… “It’s really not a good idea, breathes a deputy close to Emmanuel Macron. Not only does he symbolize technocracy at its peak, but also opportunism, since he is in reality running for office the succession of von der Leyen.”
The important thing, for the moment, is not the incarnation but the project, many Renaissance leaders constantly told us during this Gironde weekend. Certainly, but judging by the clans which are coming together at this very moment to support their favorite candidate, or even invent them, it is difficult not to conclude that the big maneuvers have begun. Pascal Canfin’s supporters insist on the fact that Ursula von der Leyen, guest of honor on campus, clearly mentioned him in her speech. Some Macronist executives, such as the Minister of Solidarity and Family Aurore Bergé, are pushing the candidacy of Renaissance MP Benjamin Haddad, also a researcher in international relations; when others, like Sacha Houlié, take a position for Canfin or MEP Valérie Hayer, co-president of the delegation of Renaissance elected officials to the European Parliament…
How difficult it is to find the perfect candidate. Is it really necessary? Nathalie Loiseau, head of the list in 2019 and since moved to the Philippiste d’Horizons stable, didn’t she achieve a more than honorable score in her time? “In any case, the five-legged sheep does not exist and it does not exist anywhere,” concludes the Minister of Industry Roland Lescure. Above all, what do the more or less wise supporters, strategists and advisors matter: the head of the list of the presidential majority will only be chosen behind a single desk, that of the Golden Salon of the Élysée.