Gaspard Gantzer was communications advisor to President François Hollande, he is president of Gantzer Agency.
“I will not enter the government”
, due to lack
of “profound agreement on the policy”
to follow, announced François Bayrou, to whom we can recognize a certain sense of formula and spectacle.
Visibly upset at not obtaining from the President of the Republic the position of Minister of National Education that he coveted, the mayor of Pau delivered a very personal interpretation of the Constitution, believing that he was master of the composition of the government.
What could seem like a reaction of pride or a simple whim is indicative of a deeper political crisis, the impact of which risks being explosive for the presidential majority, at all levels of power.
François Bayrou first aroused the ire of the venerable Jean-Louis Bourlanges, president of the foreign affairs committee of the National Assembly, and in the political-media circuit for nearly 40 years.
Known for his sense of nuance and his level-headedness, the deputy for Hauts-de-Seine thus published a vitriolic press release, regretting the inconsistency of the President of Modem who invents "participation without support", and judging his attitude "politically inept and morally degrading.”
We have known the heirs of the French Christian Democrats to be more reserved and above all more friendly to each other.
Also read: Guillaume Tabard: “Macron and the failed saga of the reshuffle”
This rebellious impulse recalls the heyday of the socialist group in the National Assembly during the second part of François Hollande's five-year term, when the deputies Pouria Amirshahi, Laurent Baumel, and Christian Paul, increased the attacks against the president and the prime minister of the at the time, Manuel Valls.
They have since been forgotten, but, at the time, they undoubtedly did harm, pushing the outgoing president not to run again, and leading to an electoral berezina, both in the presidential and legislative elections, in 2017 as in 2022 .
This political crisis can also be reminiscent of that triggered by Jacques Chirac when he decided to resign from Matignon, reversing at the time the constitutional logic which requires that the President of the Republic be master of the destiny of his Prime Minister.
Certainly François Bayrou is not prime minister, but like Jacques Chirac before him, who in 1974 gave the Gaullists' support to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, he was the trigger for Emmanuel Macron's victory.
Time will tell whether the 2017 alliance is just chipped or permanently broken.
The plate tectonics caused by the President of the Republic risks quickly causing a gaping fault in the majority.
Gaspard Gantzer
For the moment, Jean-Louis Bourlanges has not brought other outraged people in his wake, it is possible that this will change quickly.
The now known government cast keeps up appearances with the retention of four MoDem ministers, an unchanged score for Bayrou's party.
But nothing guarantees the absolute loyalty of the centrist group which has already demonstrated its ability to free itself during the debates on pensions and immigration.
Will they come to swell the ranks of the disappointed and “cuckolds” of Macronism alongside the “left-wing Macronists” whose influence is reduced to nothing, despite the efforts of Sacha Houlié, and the deputies of the Horizons group, who do not can't wait for the launch of Édouard Philippe's campaign?
The plate tectonics caused by the President of the Republic risks quickly causing a gaping fault in the majority.
Indeed, on the one hand, believing that the country is on the right, even on the extreme right, he seems to only want to rally former stars of the Chirac and Sarkozy years, like Catherine Vautrin and Rachida, to his white panache. Dati, while his prime minister echoes the words of Éric Zemmour on “French identity”.
On the other hand, he keeps François Bayrou at a distance, to whom he owes his 2017 victory, and dismisses without explanation Elisabeth Borne, who had not yet failed, and the ministers who modestly expressed their convictions and their attachments to their values, like Clément Beaune about the immigration law, or Rima Abdul-Malak, about Vincent Bolloré and Gérard Depardieu.
Read alsoGovernment: the return of François Bayrou at the heart of negotiations
This does not bode well for the majority for the coming months.
The European elections are going to be difficult.
It is certain that they will result in an overwhelming victory for the National Rally, and it cannot be ruled out that the score of the list led by Raphaël Glucksmann will come close to that of Renaissance, offering an improbable comeback to the Socialist Party who didn't ask for so much.
We can also bet that the promised constitutional revision on abortion will not happen, that 49.3 will multiply and that few texts will be discussed in Parliament.
This is regrettable because the economic and social crisis is approaching, as evidenced by the current serious housing crisis, the low growth expected for the first part of 2024 - around 0.2% per quarter, or the recent increase in announcements of social plans, from Société Générale to Worldline, including Casino and IKKS.
Rather than small settling of scores between friends, and anathemas launched in public, it is more than ever unity that the majority needs, to face the storms of 2024.