No more holidays for Philippe Emmanuel. After a few days spent in the gorges of the Tarn, the mayor (LREM) of Jouars-Pontchartrain takes this Friday the road towards Yvelines. It must be said that his agenda is shaken up to say the least. Following the appointment to the Ministry of Solidarity of Aurore Bergé of which he is the deputy, the 63-year-old elected official must now prepare his return... in the National Assembly.
As provided for in the electoral code, a deputy who enters the government at one month to resign from his parliamentary function and let his replacement wear the costume. "Very happy" to see Aurore Bergé cross a level - "It has not always been easy for her, but she has fought, she has always hung on," he says - the mayor of the town of 5500 inhabitants will thus "discover a new world".
"I will not do Aurore Bergé," he warns from the outset. We share the same enthusiasm, the same passion, but we are very different. She navigates politics at a high level. I am first and foremost an earthling, well attached to his territory." This entry into the Assembly, the elected representative necessarily had it in the corner of his head. "I had thought about it. We had prepared a little bit, he concedes. I will try to engage where I feel useful. I am a pragmatist."
Not easy to organize your succession when "half of the municipal councillors are at the beach"
In turn, the consequences for the town hall of Jouars-Pontchartrain are important. "It's about setting up a continuity scenario. I have one month to resign, propose a succession and organize the election within the municipal council, "says the future deputy of the 10th district.
It's not easy to pass the torch "when my ideal successor would be the association of three people," he looks. It is also difficult to turn everything upside down in the middle of the summer holidays "when half of the municipal councillors are at the beach".
Philippe Emmanuel, however, does not intend to break with the commune he has led since his victory in the 2020 elections, on the contrary. It would rather be a question of "coaching remotely", explains the elected official who wishes to keep a seat on the municipal council as well as his function as a community councillor within the agglomeration Cœur d'Yvelines.