EIs Emmanuel Macron playing with Bernard Cazeneuve’s nerves? On the evening of Friday, August 30, the latter had still not received the slightest sign from the President of the Republic, while in the last few hours, the Elysée was judging “serious” the hypothesis of a return of the former prime minister of François Hollande to Matignon. To his friends, who call him to try to find out, the person concerned – who became a lawyer again in 2017 – is condemned to give the same answer: since a dinner with Emmanuel Macron, at the beginning of March, he has not had any direct contact with the latter.
According to our information, Bernard Cazeneuve was nevertheless approached, at the beginning of August, by an emissary from the Elysée, charged with sounding out his intentions. He replied that he was not asking, but that in view of the worrying situation in the country, he was ready to “do one’s duty”. Since then, nothing.
Without waiting, Bernard Cazeneuve began to sound out former collaborators with the idea of forming a hypothetical cabinet. In private, the man who has seen his name circulating for weeks, his popularity rising and falling, does not hide the fact that he would like to know which foot to dance on now, two months after the legislative elections. “I hate feeling like I’m being used…”he recently told a friend.
In parentheses
Why this torture, fueled by the Elysée? Did Emmanuel Macron, who is looking for a head of government capable of not being immediately overthrown by a divided Assembly, want to test the name of Bernard Cazeneuve at the time of the socialists’ gathering in Blois? Or does he have another profile in mind? He who would have preferred to appoint a right-wing prime minister is he hoping to drag Les Républicains into a coalition in spite of themselves, while Nicolas Sarkozy, in an interview with Figaro published Friday, August 30, calls on his friends to govern? No one knows.
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One thing is certain: appointing Bernard Cazeneuve to Matignon would have a cost, both political and personal. It would first mean that Emmanuel Macron agrees to give up part of his power, and recognizes that he lost on July 7. Implicitly, it would also be acknowledging the fact that the “new world” has failed, so much so that the old one has to be recalled. Like a return to square one, the ” revolution “ macronian putting itself in parentheses… Well, that would be “cohabit” with an experienced and shrewd politician who has already governed.
Respected on both the right and the left, Bernard Cazeneuve is not the type to let people walk all over him, even if he is loyal and reserved. “I will not be a left-wing prime minister who leads a right-wing policy”he repeats in private, while indicating that he wants to establish a real cohabitation with Emmanuel Macron. Can the latter, who does not want to see his record unraveled and seeks to protect his comfort, accommodate himself to this?
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