How can I stop inviting him? Once, twice, Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier had lunch together, in the days following the appointment of the new Prime Minister. It is an old tradition to see heads of state and government share a meal once a week, but obviously not a constitutional obligation… So Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier found other ways of working. Perhaps certain hidden talents of the Savoyard – “We all have something of Michel Blanc in us”, wrote the Prime Minister after the death of the actor – have escaped the president… We might as well receive, as told La Tribune SundayGérald Darmanin, on the verge of becoming Michel Barnier’s best enemy.
Emmanuel Macron does not eat, but he drinks the chalice, and down to the dregs. On Friday October 4, an exclusive interview announced with great fanfare by TV5 Monde, RFI and France 24 was canceled at the last minute, due to a scheduling problem. The planned subject is the Francophonie summit, which brings together nearly 50 international leaders in Villers-Cotterêts, where the international city of the French language is located, a great work of this president. “No one has talked about this event, the news is elsewhere,” says a close friend of the head of state.
The next day, the president is on France Inter, for a program of almost an hour recorded a few days earlier. This time, he draws the heavy weapon and not against just anyone, the Minister of the Interior. Bruno Retailleau considered that immigration is not an opportunity for France? Emmanuel Macron judges the statement “resolutely in contradiction […] with reality”. And he quips: “We could have decided that we would have done nuclear physics better without the Polish Marie Curie” or “that we could have danced much better without Charles Aznavour”. The millions of dual nationals and of French people with immigrant backgrounds are “our wealth” and “a strength”, he insists.
Uproar in the executive branch? We remember that in 1986, it was enough for François Mitterrand to clear his throat when he heard the Minister of the Interior at the time, Charles Pasqua, express reservations or make his disagreements known, to cause a tremor of land in cohabitation. This time, nothing. No reaction, the presidential remarks sink into total indifference.
Even when he is invisible and mute – hard to ask for more – he still manages to be whistled at. Monday evening, during the ceremony organized by Crif in tribute to the victims one year after the terrorist attacks of October 7 in Israel, it was enough for Michel Barnier to quote “the President of the Republic” twice for the room to start listening. boo. The previous Saturday, the head of state had spoken in favor of stopping arms deliveries to Israel for the war in Gaza.
Kohler’s instructions: the Elysée does not interfere with the budget
These days illustrate the new life of Emmanuel Macron, far from the spotlight that he cherishes so much. On Tuesday, October 1, all eyes are on Michel Barnier, who delivers his general policy declaration to the National Assembly. It was after dark that the Head of State convened a defense council on the situation in Lebanon and recent developments in the crisis in the Middle East, which will be the subject of a very long press release published at 1:51 a.m. in the morning – there was a time when even the simple holding of a defense council was not subject to any confirmation as the proceeding was supposed to be secret.
On Thursday 3, the secretary general of the presidency, Alexis Kohler, brought together, as he regularly does, the main members of the cabinet. The budget is approaching, with its sensitive points, its assured controversies, its delicate arbitrations. Regardless, the new rules of the game require that the collaborators of the Head of State stay away. Above all, do not give the impression of co-management. The fight will be led by others.
On Sunday 6, Gabriel Attal speaks on the subject at 8 p.m. on TF1. The same one who is privately surprised that the articles on the deputies of the Ensemble pour la République group (ex-Renaissance) still present them as “macronists”… The same one who, with all due respect to Emmanuel Macron, intends to set out to conquer the party without giving up his hat as group president in the National Assembly.
On Wednesday, “the head of the armed forces” is traveling to the great East, for a visit on the theme of defense. All that’s left is this. He should be accompanied by a minister he likes – this is a rare thing. Sébastien Lecornu was thus able to save his portfolio, when Michel Barnier dreamed of entrusting it to Bernard Cazeneuve, when Gabriel Attal pushed Gérald Darmanin.
Patience and length of time… Emmanuel Macron also has to wait, to hope that the winds turn. When the presidential campaign opens, a friend predicts, the French will see the gang of “y’a-que-ça”: among all the candidates who will jostle to be the successor, none would have the level of the one who will have presided over the destiny of the country for ten years. Then, he hopes, the rehabilitation of Macronism will begin.
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