Ministry officials smiled. When he arrived at Bercy, Gabriel Attal posted a video on the intranet of him walking with a determined step in the courtyard of the building, facing the camera, saying his pride and his joy to be there. A recording in the style of a campaign clip, sincere but not so much in the style of the house. Bercy has its codes, its symbols not to be misunderstood. Like this famous Empire office reserved for the Minister Delegate for the Budget on the fifth floor of the “fortress”, a vestige of the blessed era of the rue de Rivoli and where, according to legend, Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès signed the Code civil. As in his previous positions, Gabriel Attal wanted to replace him with that of his father, who died in 2015. He was quickly dissuaded. “It would be cutting back centuries of history”, we warned him. Prudent, he kept the furniture, and placed the more modest family piece of furniture against the window. Leaning over, you can see the hoverboard underneath that he sometimes uses to go see his advisers at the end of the long corridor of the ministers’ hotel. ” it relaxes me he says.
To have been the youngest minister under the Ve Republic, it makes you want to do well. At 33, Gabriel Attal, who is preparing to defend his first budget in the Hemicycle, knows it: Bercy is a formidable launching pad, the greatest have passed there. He also fought to obtain this post, also coveted by Clément Beaune, a former “techno” from the budget. The former student of the Alsatian school worked all summer on the sheets prepared by his office to get up to speed. And for the heritage days, he came for two whole days to welcome the “thousands of visitors” come to see the austere gray building. It must be said that a good third of onlookers were network agents who came to see the parent company. The former government spokesperson (from 2020 to 2022) says he wants “to invest in social dialogue” of a ministry which, more than all the others, has cut its workforce over the past twenty years, to set an example.
At the dawn of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term, the challenge for him is not only to be accepted by this administration which is said to be more powerful than passing policies. It is also to manage to exist alongside Bruno Le Maire, tutelary figure of the place, who never misses an opportunity to recall his longevity as Minister of the Economy – since 2017. The pair formed by Gabriel Attal and Jean-Michel Blanquer to education (2018-2020) had not worked. Will the young man in a hurry manage to impose his mark, in the shadow of the one he calls « Bruno », et whose he rented “reassuring continuity” during the handover? The former candidate for the right-wing primary in 2016 excels in the art of being omnipresent without ever formally deviating from the collective game.
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