One can find a special charm in times of political crisis: they give rise to all the rumours, hypotheses and speculations. They are rarely — if not never — confirmed subsequently, but they reveal a state of mind, shed light on a situation. So this flash emitted by a macronist at a Parisian political table: what if the president appoints François Baroin to Matignon? Here’s a brilliant idea!
The eternal young prodigy, or safe haven, Arlesian from the right, always quoted and almost never a winner, for lack of starting the race. The last time we (abundantly) talked about the former minister of Chirac then of Sarkozy, former boss of the influential Association of Mayors of France, it was when the Republicans were looking for a candidate to face Emmanuel Macron in the 2022 presidential election.
Alas, the passionate hunter played the dodging, convinced according to a relative that “his profile resembled that of the outgoing president too much” to succeed in dislodging him from the Elysée. But the one who retreated to his town hall in Troyes (Aube) and now runs a bank would perhaps not have given up all national ambition…
Why would Macron make him his prime minister? Because, says a political “strategist”, it would be a way to widen his majority on the right, that the support of LR sympathizers – if not the tenors – would be acquired, that the man has an image of unifier and could dismiss the Marine Le Pen spectrum for 2027. Besides, did the president not want to send LR Catherine Vautrin to Matignon before giving up on it in the face of the bronca of the barons of En Marche? This (very) little music does not move an ear to the person concerned but proves two things: the disarray of a presidential camp short of solutions and the escheat of a right in search of tenors.