Livid, that’s how everyone described him that night. This Sunday, June 19, Clément Beaune tries to hide his dismay. But when he leaves the Elysee, around 8:30 p.m., where he spoke in a small committee with Emmanuel Macron, the one who is still Minister for Europe is worried, almost resigned. At 40, his political ascent, patiently carried out step by step, threatens to be stopped in mid-flight. The second round of the legislative elections turns into a crash for the presidential camp, which only obtains a relative majority in the Hemicycle.
Richard Ferrand, President of the National Assembly, close to Emmanuel Macron, is defeated in Finistère. Christophe Castaner, former Minister of the Interior, president of the group La République en Marche, sometimes nicknamed “the pipelette”, for his propensity to noise the conversations he leads with the Head of State, misses his re-election in the Alps -de-Haute-Provence. Amélie de Montchalin, Minister of Ecological Transition, Brigitte Bourguignon, health, are eliminated…
And him ? The faithful of Emmanuel Macron, Parisian smiling, polite and always well dressed, does he not embody this Macronie whose voters seem to no longer want? Minute by minute, he follows the progress of the counting of the ballot boxes of the 7e district of Paris, in the bar Le Viaduc (12e arrondissement), near the Place de la Bastille. The pack of journalists awaits him a few meters away, at the Bota’Bastoch bar. “I was confident of winning the whole time of this campaign, except for that moment! »he recalls.
And, suddenly, around 9:30 p.m., the first estimates give him the winner by a few decimal places. But he has to wait 10 p.m. for confirmation, find his colors, throw himself into his father’s arms and swallow a half, a rare “hobby” that his friends know about him. That evening, the enarque won on the wire against his opponent from the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), the very “rebellious” lawyer Caroline Mecary. His fate was decided with less than a thousand votes, 658, to be exact. Enough for the “techno” which had never rubbed shoulders with universal suffrage to make its political moult. Here it is finally “chosen from somewhere”he rejoices.
Emancipate in “perfect loyalty”
From this hard-fought victory, the Minister will remember that ideological clarity can pay off. On the evening of the first round, the presidential majority was lost on the voting instructions to be carried out in the event of duels between Nupes and the far right, evoking a choice ” case by case “.
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