End of the meeting between Macron and Barnier, Wauquiez gives up, Retailleau proposed to the Interior

The meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who came to the Elysée to propose his government to the head of state, ended on the evening of Thursday, September 19 after about fifty minutes, an AFP journalist noted.

The President of the Republic accompanied the leader of the Republican party to the vestibule, telling him: “Thank you very much, see you tomorrow”The government will be presented “before Sunday”according to Matignon. In the meantime, here is what we know.

“Michel Barnier offered me Bercy and so I declined”

LR leader Laurent Wauquiez announced to his group’s deputies in the National Assembly that he was giving up on participating in Michel Barnier’s government, while senator Bruno Retailleau has been proposed for the Interior, concordant sources told AFP.

“Michel Barnier offered me Bercy and so I declined to stay at the head of the group”declared the deputy of Haute-Loire, who chairs the Republican Right group which has 47 deputies, specifying that LR would have nine “posts” to the next government, including three full ministries, said the participant.

“From the beginning, I said that entering the government was not my obsession (and) I said that I would only go if I could be useful to the Ministry of the Interior”explained Laurent Wauquiez, whose name has long been circulating for Place Beauveau.

“It’s a weight of roughly 20%.”

In his speech, he gave the names of the LR ministers “transmitted by Michel Barnier” who will be proposed to be part of its executive, including the head of the LR senators Bruno Retailleau who would be appointed to the Ministry of the Interior, information confirmed by other sources.

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The other LR proposed for the government would be the deputy Patrick Hetzel for Higher Education, the deputy and general secretary of LR Annie Genevard for Agriculture, Othman Nasrou for Secularism, Jean-Lous Thieriot for Veterans, Laurence Garnier for Family, Sophie Primas for Foreign Trade and Tourism and François-Noël Buffet for Overseas.

“It’s a weight of roughly 20%.” for LR within the government, estimated Laurent Wauquiez, who nevertheless considers that these nine positions are “well below our weight in Parliament”The Republicans consider that they constitute the largest parliamentary group by adding together the senators and the deputies.

Calling on LR elected officials to “meet the expectations of the French”Laurent Wauquiez has committed to helping the Prime Minister with LR “in his difficult mission”. “But it cannot be a continuation of ‘at the same time’, there must be a break with the years that have passed”he warned, believing that “Parliamentary groups will have a key role to play in ensuring this.”.

Furthermore, according to a leader of the former majority, Barnier proposed to appoint Jean-Noël Barrot to Foreign Affairs and to reappoint Lecornu to the Armed Forces.