a change in continuity

Alexis Kohler leaves his duties after eight years spent with Emmanuel Macron. Emmanuel Moulin, former director of the Treasury, will succeed him. For some, it is a copy-paste of his predecessor, proof that the Élysée does not want to change anything.

It is the man who blows in the ear of the President of the Republic, Alexis Kohler leaves his functions as secretary general of the Élysée, Monday April 14, to give his place to Emmanuel Moulin. “”It is a Kohler clone, same profile, same network. We take the same and start again“, annoys an opposition deputy who expects not to see the slightest difference.

Kohler and Moulin are two men who have been rubbing shoulders with a long time. They were trained in the same mold: Sciences Po, where they participated in the same young Rocardians club. ESSEC, ENA … They are both specialists in the economy and have sailed in the high spheres of the state over the past twenty years.

Besides Emmanuel Moulin knows the Élysée well. He was an economic advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy. Then Bruno Le Maire trusted him to be his chief of staff in Bercy for three years, before he became director of the Treasury. It is the Élysée which slips the name of Emmanuel Moulin to occupy the post of chief of staff to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. “”People at this level of experience are counted on the fingers of one hand, and with this level of confidence, there must be one or two“, deciphers the macronist deputy Mathieu Lefèvre who worked with Emmanuel Moulin. He judges this appointment”logic“And confirms the rumor:”He’s a very funny person, always in a good mood“. Implied: not an austere figure like its predecessor.

His career explains that he was in the viewfinder of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the budgetary slippages of 2023 and 2024, when he was in Matignon. During his hearing by the deputies, “He was really in control, a little tongue of wood, I did not withdraw much“, Relates the rebellious Eric Coquerel, who chairs the finance committee. He considers that Emmanuel Moulin has a neoliberal prism and that he embodies this”role of the policy on growth forecasts made by administrative services“. Other opposition deputies confirm: he is one of those who wanted”prevent the revelation of the truth about the drifts“Finance, while everything has been going on since the fall of 2023, says Charles de Courson. This centrist deputy thinks that the appointment of Emmanuel Moulin at the Élysée”can only add to the same disastrous result“.

What is certain is that it embodies ideological continuity. This is what a deputy close to the president highlights: “This appointment marks the desire to pursue the policy of the supply driven since 2017 and to maintain a pro-business economic policy“. This elected representative of the right wing of Macronie sees it as a message”Faced with the Prime Minister’s attempts to lessen this policy“. Except that the political configuration has changed well for a year, the President of the Republic and his team can certainly issue wishes to the Head of Government, without having real taken on budgetary choices. The secretary general of the Élysée, who occupies the office right next to that of the president, has, in fact, less influence on the internal affairs than before.