“Don’t pass by people without seeing them! », “I don’t want ministers who are fans of jumping to the provinces, take the time, spend a night there, meet local elected officials! » Monday morning, during breakfast at Matignon, then this Friday, during the team building session, Michel Barnier insisted on the need to change the behavior of his team. After criticism of disconnection against those in power, obsessed with metropolitan France and happy globalization, the Prime Minister is demanding a radical change in the mode of governance. And it must be visible. “He spent half an hour each time explaining to us how to behave”testifies a minister, both surprised and aware of the importance of getting rid of the arrogance of the practice of Macronist power.
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What goes for the country also goes for abroad. During European summits, or when representing France internationally, “we arrive on time, we don’t leave before the others. We look up from our laptop and our notes, we look each interlocutor in the eyes. » An education advisor welcoming new middle school students at the start of the school year would not express it otherwise. But several ministers tell the JDD that they see a healthy method, consisting of pointing out the obvious.
The Barnier method is confirmed, it is the return of old-style politics in that it consists of listening to your interlocutors, of considering them, without claiming to have the answer to everything. The social partners themselves realized this this week. Sophie Binet of the CGT even seemed a little disconcerted by the attention of the Prime Minister, crediting her new team with a real desire to give the social partners their place in the consultation, particularly on the reform of unemployment insurance.
“We understood that the DPG was going to be essentially focused on the budgetary emergency”
A week of rich exchanges, concluded with four hours of thematic workshops this Friday, with ministers divided into groups around different experts. At the “Public Finance” table, attended in particular by Didier Migaud (former president of the Court of Auditors) and the governor of the Bank of France François Villeroy de Galhau, the latter detailed at length the worrying situation in the country. Before him, by way of introduction, Antoine Armand and Laurent Saint-Martin drew up a statement of public finances, the issues of which many ministers clearly did not understand. “They insisted on the risk of an explosion in the rates at which we borrow, and on the pressure exerted on France by our European partners”reports a minister.
Documents from Bercy services were distributed, encrypted, before the Prime Minister retrieved them to avoid any leak. “We understood that the general policy declaration was going to be essentially focused on the budgetary emergency, with the idea that everyone must take their responsibilities”deciphers a participant. Barnier notably stressed that he would not repeat the argument of his predecessors, who mainly accused local authorities of being responsible for the explosion in spending.
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Matignon confirms that the “DPG” will focus on budgetary imperatives rather than on security or immigration issues, despite the burning debate around foreign convicts required to leave the territory (OQTF). Michel Barnier should be sober and concise, according to his entourage, who announces a general policy speech probably much shorter than those of his predecessors.
