Arnaud Benedetti is associate professor at Paris-Sorbonne University. He is editor-in-chief of the political and parliamentary review. He published
How are the politicians dead?
- The great malaise of power
(editions of Cerf, November 2021).
This reshuffle is already a form of impasse, not to say failure.
It is in no way commensurate with a rebound or a renewal, it is constrained to the millimeter by the result of the legislative elections, and moreover it could not be otherwise.
His announcement, moreover, will never have given so much scope to skilfully calculated leaks, as if it were a question of cushioning too much solemnity which would have over-emphasized the weakness of the political gains.
We shelled the small pebbles to pick them up in an official press release.
The secretary general of the Élysée thus remained in his office.
This reorganization is banal like a change of team under the Fourth Republic.
Emmanuel Macron lost his attractiveness, his re-election was guaranteed by an impeded campaign, and the legislative election gave him the real picture of the political landscape.
Macronism is not only in retraction, it has entered into entropy
(in physics, inability of the energy contained in a system to provide work, Editor's note)
.
One would look in vain for the sign of conquest or even of extension that this Borne II government might signify.
The return of Marlène Schiappa to yet another portfolio and the move of Olivier Véran from the Ministry of Relations with Parliament to the spokesperson must be read as the depletion of macronist biodiversity.
Arnaud Benedetti
Obviously, commentators will always be able to certify that there are elements to be noted in what basically constitutes a nano-event: the promotion of two ministers from the right (Christophe Béchu and Caroline Cayeux), the extension of the missions by Gérald Darmanin, the entry of a former socialist Olivier Klein, mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois or the strengthening of the weight of the MoDem, i.e.: a big pinch to the right, a little to the left, a slightly more centrist coloring, a few personalities from civil society or the senior civil service, this is deja-vu which we can say without too much risk that it will not impact public opinion.
There is something inevitably worn out in a formula without momentum, or meaning other than that Emmanuel Macron is running out of resources and can only count on his original reduced.
In this respect, the return of Marlène Schiappa to yet another portfolio and the move of Olivier Véran from the Ministry of Relations with Parliament to the spokesperson must be read as the depletion of macronist biodiversity.
The president acts on a parliamentary cartography which he can only hope will allow him cabotage according to the texts and from day to day.
Arnaud Benedetti
This lack of originality and the limits it reflects make sense in the composition of this new government team.
The physics of political forces imposes itself on a president who, by dint of triangulating, has hindered himself and is forced to withdraw.
De facto
, he enacts a parliamentary cartography which he can only hope will allow him a sort of cabotage according to the texts and from day to day.
It is indeed in this uncertain pass that the ship of a power enters which has obviously built an edifice in the greatest of difficulties.
This government, from the outset, is struck as the seal of its extreme fragility, it is as if woven from the thread of the fabrics of a last part of the five-year term, unless it offers the image of a transition.
It certainly presents itself as the sign that we would like to be the least repulsive possible with a view to extending the domain of a presidential majority without a real legislative majority.
It remains to bet on its duration after the coming summer and autumn.
The constant uncertainty already hovers above a team that looks more like the product of thwarted circumstances than political dynamics.