You can be in an ejection seat and continue to enjoy the little pleasures of life: the warmth of a farmhouse, the softness of a sofa… and the satisfaction of accepting yourself as you are. At 37, this uninhibited liberal is the first full-time minister to publicly introduce his companion. One more disruption for this lifelong Macronist. His desire to impose a three-day waiting period on civil servants on sick leave provoked the ire of the unions, and his outstretched hand to Elon Musk plunged Matignon into embarrassment. But like the cats he loves so much, Guillaume Kasbarian wants to believe that he will always land on his feet.
The boots slide on the leaves drowned in melted snow. Mustache in the wind, cap screwed on his head, the Minister of Civil Service is keen to show off his mastery of barbecue, in the garden of his cottage with a wet roof. The previous week, Guillaume Kasbarian cooked a succulent mont-d'or there. Another time it was slow-cooked salmon on cedar planks. Summer and winter, the device works at full capacity. At his side, Antoine, his companion, agrees, smiling. Here, we eat good food, and in the living room, kitchen or dining room, we are never more than three meters from a good bottle. The couple renovated this house, bought for a pittance in 2015, in a small village thirty minutes from Chartres, far from the tumult of Paris and a National Assembly threatening a little more every day to overthrow the government to which Kasbarian belongs. Unfazed, the minister continued the visit. Outside, the cellar is hidden under a walnut tree, at the bottom of a steep staircase lit by a string of lights. White wine, stored on the right, red, stacked on the left, which the couple brings back every summer during their wanderings.
Among the unpretentious vintages, the most remarkable bottle is the memory of a trip to South Africa, to the winegrower who supplied the wedding of Albert of Monaco with Charlene, the native son. It is also where the richest man in the world was born, Elon Musk, future member of the Trump administration, who promises to chop down the American public service with an ax. On November 13, by congratulating this distant counterpart in English, our minister attracted the wrath of commentators worried that the 5.7 million French public employees – whose unions are calling for a strike at the beginning of December – would end up like certain employees of the companies of the South African tycoon. Overworked, underpaid or just plain fired.
An assumed liberalism
From this very black hussar handlebar mustache of the Republic, he made a signature.
© Baptiste Giroudon
Within a Barnier government which, from the start, has been hanging by a thread, Kasbarian is pulling that of assumed liberalism, determined to “debureaucratize at all levels”. “This message on X did not indicate political convergence, I did not say that I adhered to the values of Elon Musk,” he defends himself. But I would find it contemptuous and self-centered not to watch what they do. I am not in admiration of his managerial techniques. But it concerns me that some do not see that things are being done elsewhere in Europe, in the United States, in Japan, with the introduction of artificial intelligence, for the simplification of the public service in particular. My responsibility is to look everywhere. » “I have never seen a Trumpist at home! Antoine sweeps aside, sitting on the Chesterfield sofa in the living room. Guillaume says that we need to simplify, that there is too much bureaucracy; I think everyone agrees on that. Its action aims to improve life in the country. There is a gap between the very harsh image assigned to him and his very human side, loving to take opinions and debate for hours. »
Night has fallen on the cottage. Under the orange light of the living room, where reproductions of René Magritte hang, the cats Winston and Churchill move from the armchairs to the couch. “My babies! » smiles the former president of the Economic Affairs Committee, still very happy to have been able to save one of the two brothers last summer, when he had swallowed rat poison. Two years earlier, their previous cat, Wifi, was struck down by a heart attack before their eyes, one evening in the village, during a meeting of the re-election campaign of the deputy for Eure-et-Loir. In this household, politics is kept away but sometimes invites itself. Gabriel Attal, a relative, came to spend a few days in the guest room on the first floor, a few years ago. And if Antoine flees social networks so as not to read what is said about his companion, he is indirectly at the origin of his local commitment. Now a pilot with Air France, the forty-year-old spent twenty years in the army, for which he carried out foreign operations, in Mali and Niger.
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In 2015, he joined the Villacoublay squadron, to pilot government planes, transporting in particular presidents Hollande, then Macron, while Guillaume Kasbarian, with whom he entered into a civil partnership three years earlier, is still a consultant in Paris. It was therefore to be closer to Villacoublay that the couple left Chantilly for Saint-Martin-de-Nigelles. In 2016, “Kasba” created one of the first local groups En marche in Chartres. “I did that in my off time, being elected was not the subject. The idea only germinated in January 2017, when a lawyer friend told me: “We need strong deputies if Macron wins.” I appreciated his liberal vision from the start, the fact that he wanted to break his situation. He had a desire for social, economic and political freedom; I try to do the same thing. A liberal but not conservative approach to social issues. »
Gabriel Attal, a relative, came to spend a few days with them in the countryside
“We like to put people in boxes in France. Guillaume is in that of the pure, urban liberal macronist, explains Aurore Bergé, member of Ensemble pour la République and friend of Kasbarian (who is also her daughter's godfather). While he grew up partly abroad, in Kenya, he is open to the world, to societal questions… He also shows that you can be a minister of the Republic, live with a man in a land rural without making it a militant subject. » The thirty-year-old demonstrated around ten years ago for marriage for all, “in order to demand equality, to be able to live his life like everyone else, as a universalist and not to cultivate difference”, says- he. The same desire animates him when appearing publicly with his companion. He is the very first full-time minister to take the plunge. But he wants to point out: “I did not agree to do it in a militant approach, our objective with Antoine has always been to be equal. I go into politics to advance my ideas in the service of the French. Reform modestly on my scale, shake the coconut tree. It's good to show who I am, my cats, my companion. »
“I have never shown myself publicly, and it is not an exercise that I love,” explains his companion. We have always lived in the most banal, natural way possible. Things have always gone well in my work, my personal environment… I measure our luck in light of the experiences lived by certain people in France. » “Our life as a rural couple is similar to that of our neighbors, and our love is similar to that of many French people,” continues the Minister of the Civil Service. You can be gay in France, live in the countryside, love good food, good wine, barbecue… You have to be free to accept yourself. And if it frees certain young people who are hiding or don't dare to take responsibility, so much the better. If this shocks, it’s because there is still a way to go towards equality. »
He and Antoine toyed with the idea of having a child
Holidays in Andalusia, in 2022.
© DR
A few years ago, he and Antoine toyed with the idea of having a child. Complicated project with a busy schedule. But the arrival of two nephews has since fulfilled them. If the former parliamentarian has an opinion on surrogacy, he prefers to keep it quiet in the name of the “governmental collective”, where the issue was not put on the agenda. Freedom of tone has its limits. “Guillaume succeeded by being underestimated. Between 2017 and 2022, he was perceived as a good soldier of the macronie, coldly recalls a local elected official who rather appreciates him. Then Aurore Bergé helped him, perhaps thinking that he wouldn't overshadow him… He is seen as friendly, present, but he is a professional, not an enthusiast. Basically, he seriously pushed his anti-squatting law before being appointed to Housing. Today, it is rather the “modernization of the civil service” that it should be: he has great distrust towards the State and civil servants…” “These personal attacks are unworthy,” retorts Kasbarian. I am committed to public service and come from a republican meritocracy. My father was a National Education inspector and my mother, after arriving from Lebanon at the age of 18, was a music teacher. My companion committed twenty years for his country! It’s unbecoming of who I am and what I wear. »
On all fronts, he is now taking the media spotlight, following the advice of Xavier Bertrand and Aurore Bergé. “He has things to say and has taken the time to master the subjects,” adds the latter. Few members of the government can be identified. It can be part of it with strong subjects: the weight of standards, regulations, the role of public officials. » In the political landscape, “Kasba” now cultivates a form of singularity, even in its look. “It’s not been studied,” he adds. One day our barber in Paris told me I should try a mustache. Antoine has been bribing her ever since to shave it for me… The cap came after visiting the Fléchet company, in the Lyon region, which makes them with cool designs; I have ten now. As it's made in France, we might as well continue. »
He knows it, the future is written in dotted lines. After the strike against the extension of the waiting period from one to three days in the event of sick leave in the public service, which he defended, the minister also prepared for the “worst case scenario”. A France without a budget, in case of censorship. Civil servants would then be paid only if “a special law requiring a majority was passed. But without a proper finance law, there would still be a loss of purchasing power for certain agents who could not be upgraded or benefit from advancement, as was planned. » On their threadbare armchair, Winston and Churchill snore, rocked. Both so close and so far from the political chaos that is coming.
