This looks very much like a return to square one, 51 days after the resignation of Gabriel Attal. According to his entourage, Emmanuel Macron thought, on Wednesday, September 4, that he would be able to decide between Xavier Bertrand and Bernard Cazeneuve for the post of Prime Minister. However, the President of the Republic did not manage to make his announcement.
And the executive seems, more than ever, in the dark. Which is brutally summed up by a regular at the Elysée: “Emmanuel Macron is at an impasse. This time, he is not going for a round of consultation… Storm under his skull, he starts all over again“.
Flashback. On Tuesday, September 3, everything seemed to be tied up, according to a very well-informed parliamentarian: Emmanuel Macron called Gérard Larcher, the president of the Senate, to tell him… that he was going to appoint Xavier Bertrand, the next day before noon. In the evening, according to the same source, Bernard Cazeneuve confided to a friend that he knew it would not be him.
On Wednesday, September 4, in the morning, the head of state had only to decide, claimed the President’s inner circle, assuring that the two candidates were still on an equal footing. And the executive was delighted to see the “game open” and the “decantation mechanism working“. The head of state wanted to continue to confront points of view. However, the hours passed and in the evening, the Elysée confirmed that there would be no official communication.
Verdict of a resigning minister: “Neither Bertrand nor Cazeneuve resist censorship“. The Élysée has, in fact, had to face the facts: from the beginning, the Xavier Bertrand option did not hold up, arithmetically speaking. Facing the head of the Hauts de France region, there is the National Rally, the Socialists, the Greens, and the Insoumis. That is more than 300 votes against him in the event of a motion of censure, when only 289 are needed.
As for Bernard Cazeneuve, “Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the PS, has ruined his chances by refusing to support him a priori.“, complains a supporter of the former Prime Minister of François Hollande. Emmanuel Macron, who does not want cohabitation, “was just waiting for that“, an old socialist rages.”The PS killed Cazeneuve by demanding that he implement the program of the new popular front“, sums up a regular at the Elysée.
Emmanuel Macron is therefore still looking for the five-legged sheep. Moreover, “If he only had three, that would suit me“, says a rather desperate Macronist ironically. Thus, new names are circulating as quickly as they disappear: David Lisnard, the mayor of Cannes and president of the association of mayors of France, who himself describes himself as “media bubble“and says he expects nothing; François Baroin, his predecessor at the head of the AMF; just like that of Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank. The name of the mayor of Troyes is circulating”every time“, notes a loyal supporter of the head of state, who does not believe in it for a second, nor in the nomination of Michel Barnier, the former European commissioner, whom he considers “too old” et “again too marked on the right“.
This support from Emmanuel Macron, for his part, argues for returning to the recipes that have proven themselves: a mayor unknown to the general public, from the centre-right, like Edouard Philippe or Jean Castex in their time.No past, no liabilities… The profile is less likely to be censored“, according to him.
“The risk of a Mr. Nobody is the deceptive effect“, warns a good connoisseur of the Assembly, who fears that “the hemicycle does not make Emmanuel Macron pay for his hesitations“. The latter thinks that, in any case, the “first named will be the first to fall.” And a regret is now emerging among those who are still referred to as the President’s camp: that Emmanuel Macron did not simply start by appointing… Lucie Castets. Result: we have to start looking again. There may not even be an announcement before Monday, September 9, several sources say. In his July 23 television interview, Emmanuel Macron explained that he would wait until the end of the Olympics.
