A page is turning at Bercy with the departure of Bruno Le Maire, and the arrival of a new generation which, like Antoine Armand, 33 years old, appointed to the economy, finance and industry, and Laurent Saint-Martin, 39 years old, delegate for public accounts, owes everything to Emmanuel Macron.
But if he is officially the only master on board at Bercy, Antoine Armand sees the “super-ministry” that Bruno Le Maire had carved out for himself in seven years shrinking significantly. Energy, attached to Bercy in January, thus returns to the ecological transition, while trade and crafts, detached from consumption, go to the new Ministry of Territories, and digital technology, to research. As for the budget, entrusted to Laurent Saint-Martin, it is directly attached to the Prime Minister.
In this Bercy where he will not control the fiscal and budgetary levers, the deputy of Haute-Savoie Antoine Armand will have the confidence of Emmanuel Macron, whose “pro-business” economic policy he has always shown himself to be a fervent defender. Despite the well-known rivalry between Savoyards and Haut-Savoyards, he also shares with Prime Minister Michel Barnier the same attachment to the Alpine summits, even if his educational background is above all Parisian, having passed through Henri IV, Normale Sup’, ENA… Before joining, in 2019, the finance inspectorate.
Antoine Armand, a specialist in energy issues
At the same time, the young minister has always remained rooted in the Annecy region. There, in memory of his great-grandfather Louis (emblematic president of the SNCF from 1955 to 1958 and co-author of the Rueff-Armand plan, the matrix of French economic thought), he founded Voies d’avenir, an association aimed at the professional promotion of young people. It is also there that he will get involved in politics, as departmental referent of LREM before being elected deputy in 2022, in the constituency neighboring the Savoyard one, long held by Michel Barnier.
In the Assembly, the young MP is particularly involved in issues of energy sovereignty, as rapporteur of a commission of inquiry created by Les Républicains which will allow the adoption, in June 2023, of the law relaunching nuclear power.
He is also a good connoisseur of housing issues, an emblematic but currently devastated economic sector. Having just been re-elected as a member of parliament in June and appointed to the presidency of the Economic Affairs Committee, he pleaded in August, when the Medef returned, for the Kasbarian law to be quickly discussed in the Senate in order to revive construction. But he will not have control over these two sectors, energy and housing, which are outside his portfolio.
The budget is directly under the control of the Prime Minister
No more than on the public accounts that the Prime Minister, who has made their “control” one of the priorities of his action, has chosen to keep directly under his responsibility while entrusting it to Laurent Saint-Martin, a Macronist from the very beginning.
Because if he took his first steps on the left, where he was a member of the Socialist Party and secretary of the social-liberal think tank En temps réel (ex-Fondation Saint-Simon), Laurent Saint-Martin, 39, joined En marche in June 2016. Referent of the movement for the 17th arrondissement of Paris, he was elected deputy of Val-de-Marne in a constituency that he wrested from the UMP.
“Good soldier of Macronie”
Early on involved in budgetary issues, he was elected general budget rapporteur in 2020 – the youngest of the Fifth Republic! – and will be one of the architects of the post-Covid recovery. This “good soldier of macronie”as described by the current LFI president of the finance committee Éric Coquerel, saw his career come to an abrupt end in 2022, when he was beaten in the legislative elections by LFI Louis Boyard, a year after a bitter defeat in the regional elections.
Having remained close to Emmanuel Macron, whose campaign treasurer he was in 2022, he will be appointed in 2023 as Director General of Business France, the agency responsible for attracting foreign investors to France and helping French companies to establish themselves abroad.
Laurent Saint-Martin will have the difficult task of restoring balance to public finances while maintaining the supply-side policy desired by Emmanuel Macron.
