What is a good minister for Emmanuel Macron? First of all, he is a minister who does not bore him. The fewer there are, the less the risk! “For a month, he has not been bothered by a multitude of ministers who send him messages as long as an arm,” laughs a member of the government among his followers. But we had to complete the list this Thursday evening.
A good minister is a minister who walks straight. Emmanuel Macron has a memory. He has not forgotten the ordeal that Nicole Belloubet, then Keeper of the Seals, had endured when she had to defend the first pension reform, in 2019 and 2020. During her travels, the lawyers, who did not want to that their autonomous regime would be affected, threw their black dresses at the minister’s feet in protest. She had one instruction: above all, don’t give up. “She never sneered, she never brought her strawberry, she showed unfailing loyalty,” remembers one of her friends. A soldier: the president knows that he can count on this former rector of the Limoges and Toulouse academies to replace Amélie Oudéa-Castéra at National Education. He therefore did not take up the doubts expressed by one of his confidants: “Bringing people back doesn’t give momentum.” Shh! Basically, she is the exact opposite of François Bayrou, as little political as he is, even if she was elected socialist to the town hall of Toulouse and to the regional council of Midi-Pyrénées.
A coin toss nomination then? Not really. The president had both options in mind from the start. But it is clear that Nicole Belloubet arrives as the one who takes the position because François Bayrou did not want it. We have seen a more effective springboard. Does Emmanuel Macron know this judgment that Jacques Chirac made in his time when he observed his government: “In the herds of Limousin, there is always a bad animal, which walks alongside. This bad animal is Fillon”? The current president does not want a bad beast in his government. Obviously, Nicole Belloubet will not be the one.
Well, she who is reluctant to take the spotlight will not compete with Rachida Dati. Which enchants the president with its first steps… “How long has it been since we had a Minister of Culture who was able to do so much media to reach so many people?”, underlines a close friend. When political recomposition is no longer a matter of right or left but a matter of elite and people. And what matters is the background. One of his political comrades was also struck by the speech given before him by Emmanuel Macron praising the merits of his minister without ever uttering the word “culture” as if it were for him a political project before embodying a cultural project.
There is one who must have felt a little dizzy in recent days: Agnès Pannier-Runacher. Until the last minutes of the negotiations, we looked for a landing strip for the former Minister of Energy Transition. Nothing, not an idea… And suddenly, the light. Gabriel Attal remembered some suggestions that Marc Fesneau had whispered in his ear… Or rather, some moods of the Minister of Agriculture. This is a post on the busiest agenda, in calm weather as well as in times of crisis for farmers. Endless trips, here with the grain growers, there with the breeders or the dairymen. A sector equals a crisis, or almost. Vertigo. “Alone, I don’t know how to do it,” Fesneau whispered to Attal. The Prime Minister had slipped him a few names of deputies who were knowledgeable about agricultural issues, but nothing satisfactory for either of them. Gabriel Attal called him Thursday afternoon to submit the name of Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
Here is an idea, a bet even, especially since Marc Fesneau had taken up the thorny issue of biomass. Who else than an energy specialist to take care of that produced by organic materials? Two people fly less often in a squadron. “APR”, the factotum of the thousand and one hassles of the Ministry of Agriculture. And if it finds itself without specific attribution, it is not to displease Marc Fesneau. Her lifelong mentor, Jacqueline Gourault, did not have one when she officiated at Place Beauvau with Gérard Collomb, and the duo worked all the better. “When there is a thematic delegate, the cabinets tend to go to war, to hate each other,” murmurs a ministerial advisor.
To spare himself this kind of inconvenience and more or less hidden wars, there is a powerful minister who dreamed of choosing his delegate minister: Gérald Darmanin imagined entrusting Overseas to the former Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt. It must be said that the duo enjoyed working together on the thorny immigration bill. Since then, a strong friendship has united them. And the certainty of being complementary. Appreciated by the Head of State, the recently acquitted man of the left (the PNF then appealed) admitted to a friend that he could be tempted by this mini-Matignon which leaves its tenant relative autonomy. Hearing him nevertheless express some hesitation, one of his close friends retorted: “it will do you good not to be in Paris, in the jar.” It is therefore Marie Guévenoux who was appointed to this position. Let’s leave the conclusion of this episode to Fernando Pessoa: “The only mystery is that there are people who think about the mystery.”
The mystery is also that there are people who persist in believing themselves irreplaceable. Recently, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, former Minister of Health in the Borne government, insisted to Catherine Vautrin on the extent of her knowledge. “The only one who didn’t understand that she was leaving was her,” the new Minister of Labor, Health and Solidarity finally said sarcastically. Here the exit…
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