His passage at the head of the Ministry of Health will therefore have ended in tears. Some people see it as a sign that by replacing Benjamin Griveaux at short notice as LREM candidate for mayor of Paris, Agnès Buzyn "sacrificed herself for the cause". A relative corrects, evoking the emotion of farewells: “She does not see it as a sacrifice. She is betting. The fact remains that the image presses where it hurts. Three days ago, Agnès Buzyn was sweeping the hypothesis of a candidacy in Paris. "She may be a little scared, but she wants to," says a party official.
Agnès Buzyn in tears leaves the Ministry of Health
Tears, then. And a lot of sweat in perspective. Agnes Buzyn has no more than four weeks to put her candidacy into existence and wage her first electoral battle. This Monday, she chained the meetings at the campaign headquarters in Montparnasse. On the menu: five immense challenges that he must meet.
1. Getting known
Buzyn is a Macronie “heavyweight”. "She is the only one who could enter the game at the same level as Hidalgo and Dati," praises a pillar of the majority. Faced with its two competitors, it leaves all the same with a serious deficit of notoriety. "Is she known?" That is a subject, "breathes a Walker for whom the candidate has no choice:" It's thirty days in the field! »Recommendation followed from day 1 of his campaign, with a first outing to the Luxembourg garden.
"She will not stay in an office or spend her time on TV sets," certifies Delphine Bürkli, mayor (ex-LR) of the IXth. But "it will not be able to plow the 17 arrondissements", recognizes LREM counselor from Paris, Jérôme Dubus, recommending, like others, to bet on the media: "It will be an image campaign. "
Which ? The Walkers imagine him snacking on the left as on the right. If it is not caught up by his status as a former minister faced with pension reform or the hospital crisis. “She will be able to reconcile and she has a capacity to bring people together. She has to print her brand, her style, her way of being, her method, ”advises MoDem Marielle de Sarnez. Problem, "she does not know Paris", however admits an LREM executive, who enjoins her to "potash so as not to get stuck on subjects like the city's debt".
2. Having a united team behind them
Agnes Buzyn has not left her ministry alone. Her chief of staff and her communicator follow her. For the rest, she keeps the existing team. Except that Benjamin Griveaux left, some executives or activists find their way back to the campaign headquarters. “The Griveaux clan was at the helm, it will change, one of them slips. Agnes' candidacy, I'm not sure it wins, but it brings together the political family. »The Walker Mounir Mahjoubi or Marielle de Sarnez are not far away. Like party numbers 1 and 2, Stanislas Guerini and Pierre Person. At the party's headquarters, we are assured of "seeing activists who left for Villani return".
Paradox: while they have experienced a cataclysm, the Walkers seem to be won over by a form of “euphoria”. “People felt stuck in a boring campaign. It is an absolute breath. Agnes is more attentive, more caring, less clan-like. She is an angel, this woman. I am in a joy without limit, ignites a pillar of the campaign. A ministerial adviser deciphers: “Even before the affair, people no longer believed in it with Griveaux. There, it is a deliverance. "
3. Rebuild a project by hand
The neocandidate launches into the battle of Paris while the En Marche project has already been put together and presented by Benjamin Griveaux. If it will keep the fundamentals of cleanliness or safety, the former minister should amend it with proposals on health or the family. "She gives herself forty-eight hours to add things and remove others," says the mayor (ex-LR) of the ninth, Delphine Bürkli. It's a new campaign that is starting and she wants it to be hers. ” Agnès Buzyn should therefore throw out the very mocking project of moving the Gare de l'Est to create a Parisian "Central Park". The 100,000 € contribution to help the middle classes buy their apartment would also be on the hot seat.
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“It will put simplicity. With her, it will not be the Lépine competition of idiotic ideas, ”says a Walker. “You have to embody a few subjects in a very simple way. Be effective, ”sums up a LREM MP, when Marielle de Sarnez pleads for“ very concrete, short-term commitments.
4. Reconciling with Villani
He was very angry with Benjamin Griveaux, to the point of letting his calls ring out. But this Monday noon, the candidate (ex-LREM) Cédric Villani picked up his phone when Agnès Buzyn called him to reach out to him. The mathematician immediately set his conditions "to consider possible convergences". On its program but also on "the opening to a second round agreement" with the ecological candidate David Belliard.
“What was lacking in Griveaux was the relationship with ecology and the Greens. We'll see if Buzyn is ready to discuss it, ”explains Cédric Villani's campaign director. "An agreement with the Greens, it is not possible" we loose in response in the entourage of the candidate LREM. In short, unless there is a huge surprise, there will be many Villani ballots at the Paris polling stations on March 15.
However, communication is again possible between Villani and the candidate LREM, who should be called again in the coming days. "They appreciate each other very much," emphasizes a villanist. They are personalities from civil society, macronists and novices in politics. »An LREM executive catches his dreams:« I no longer exclude today that a deal with Cédric Villani is possible. "
5. Find an anchor
"It will be in the 17th century", assured this Monday evening a member of the campaign team. In all likelihood, Agnès Buzyn will replace place for place Benjamin Griveaux by taking the head of the list of this strategic arrondissement of north-west Paris, in the hands of the right since 1977. A fairly logical choice according to Jérôme Dubus, elected LREM of the sector. "Agnes Buzyn fits well with 17th century sociology," he analyzes. And then, it is a district to conquer which sends twelve councilors from Paris to the Hôtel de Ville and therefore weighs heavily in the balance for the election of the mayor. "