Alongside Elisabeth Borne, Aurélien Rousseau appears to be his opposite. At 46, an imposing silhouette, round glasses and a slight rocky accent from the Cévennes, he flanks the more austere-looking Prime Minister. In his vast office on the first floor of Matignon, the chief of staff refutes the effect « ying et yang ». But it brings binder to the quartet that rules France, whose first three protagonists are known – Emmanuel Macron, his secretary general, Alexis Kohler, and the prime minister. This fourth member, usually invisible, plays the role of ” Vice Prime Minister “according to Edouard Philippe and Gilles Boyer in Clear prints and lines (JC Lattès, 2021). To him of “advise, implement, reassure, revive, and if necessary protect or reframe” the head of government.
Aurélien Rousseau is both more apparent and more political than his predecessors. A native of Alès and rooted in the Gard, he committed himself to the left in the footsteps of an elected communist grandmother and a mother director of a home for young workers, activist of the Unified Socialist Party of Michel Rocard. . “I am with my women”laughs the happy father of three daughters, when he welcomes his guests to the Cevennes family home, between trout fishing and a memorable interpretation of Connemara Lakes, by Michel Sardou. A young member of the French Communist Party (PCF), he cut his teeth twenty years ago in the cabinet of Communist Pierre Mansat, one of the deputy mayors of Paris Bertrand Delanoë. There, Nicolas Revel, deputy chief of staff of Delanoë and future chief of staff of Jean Castex at Matignon, encourages him to pass the ENA. Aurélien Rousseau follows his advice, and joins the Council of State in 2009. “Revel is the good fairy who bent over Aurélien”summarizes Pierre Mansat.
In May, the Elysée placed him in Matignon under the influence of the all-powerful Alexis Kohler. The Cévenol, which led the Ile-de-France regional health agency (ARS) in the midst of the Covid-19 health crisis, even lacks being Minister of Health. “I have no doubt that he would do this very well one day”, slips Nicolas Revel, today boss of the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris. Rousseau and Borne were not close, but the future “dircab” had crossed paths with the future prime minister in the “Delanoë band” – he had returned to lead the cabinet of the mayor of Paris in 2012, she was director of urban planning for the city. They find hooked atoms. Benoît Ribadeau-Dumas, ex-chief of staff and twenty-year-old friend of Edouard Philippe, observes that “their team works very well: it is demanding and determined; he is plump, sentimental, calm under pressure”.
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