2023-08-30 07:27:37
Emmanuel Macron probably did not expect to see the battle for his succession launched so soon. Several majority executives have already unveiled their ambitions for the 2027 presidential election, at the risk of weighing down this start of the second five-year term a little more. With a strong political and media charge this summer, Gérald Darmanin thus joined Edouard Philippe, Bruno Le Maire, even François Bayrou at the ball of the pretenders.
But the President of the Republic is not the type to be overwhelmed. To keep the hand (and the face) until the end of his mandate, Emmanuel Macron seems to oscillate between three strategies. We review them with Benjamin Morel, doctor of political science from ENS Paris-Saclay and lecturer at Paris-Panthéon-Assas.
Stay on the initiative
Once again, faced with the difficulties, Emmanuel Macron pulled an “opni” (unidentified political object) out of his hat. After the great national debate post – “yellow vests” or the National Council for Refoundation, the Head of State promised in early August a “major political initiative” to resolve the crisis in the National Assembly. This Wednesday, he therefore receives the leaders of the main parties at the school of the Legion of Honor in Saint-Denis, near Paris, for a great reflection on the texts to come.
The Elysée insists with 20 Minutes on the “new format” of the meeting, without press or adviser. “It will be done behind closed doors and without taboos, so that each participant comes out of postures”, we hope on the presidential side. “The president will not arrive with proposals, but to listen to those of the party leaders”, we add. Three themes are on the program: the international situation and institutional reforms in the afternoon, and the idea of “making a Nation” during a dinner.
“He will ask for their ideas in the face of the many challenges of the country: what do you propose on the school? On immigration? He will put the opposition parties before their responsibilities, ”assures François Patriat, the boss of the Renaissance senators. “Emmanuel Macron is neither Hollande nor Chirac. He always has new ideas, he will remain on the initiative all five years, impose his subjects and his calendar, ”he adds. If this initiative is far from thrilling the participants, it has the merit of turning the page on the Darmanin sequence of the last few days.
Benjamin Morel’s opinion: “Emmanuel Macron must show that he is in action, that he retains the ability to govern, even without a majority in the Assembly. Because if he recognizes that he can no longer do anything, we would then enter a period of the end of his reign, and therefore of a struggle for his succession”.
Stick to the coattails of the bold
Emmanuel Macron has probably not forgotten the perilous wait-and-see attitude of François Hollande, who never wanted to see the ambitions of his Minister of the Economy for the 2017 presidential election. The current president therefore urged Elisabeth Borne to go monitor his bubbling Minister of the Interior for his political comeback last Sunday in Tourcoing.
“The president did not appreciate Darmanin’s interview at the Voice of the North [dans laquelle il étrille de nouveau le gouvernement sur les classes populaires]. He said to Borne, ”you go there”. She reframed and treated him like a little boy, and he was not very good in his speech, he did not dare to do too much, ”taunts a macronist executive. The first cop in France was even forced to confide that he “obviously did not plan to create a party, nor a movement”… unlike Emmanuel Macron in April 2016.
Benjamin Morel’s opinion: “The executive had no choice but to clearly reframe Gérald Darmanin. Emmanuel Macron’s interest is to maintain his majority, which is already relative. If the war of succession opens too soon, the pro-Darmanin or pro-Philippe deputies will want to stand out, and there would be a risk of the presidential camp breaking down, which would further complicate the task of the president”.
Let successors kill each other
If he monitors the ambitious, Emmanuel Macron has so far not personally reacted to attempts at independence, letting internal tensions rise. “Darmanin annoys part of the majority”, recognizes a deputy close to the Minister of the Interior and present Sunday in Tourcoing. “But at the moment, everything that directly or indirectly relates to the future presidential election tenses up the suitors…”
It is perhaps a choice of the Head of State: to keep a distance from the internal battle to let the different teams control themselves. “Macron can say to himself ‘I let them fight, and during this time, I take the opportunity to gain height'”, adds a close friend of the president.
Benjamin Morel’s opinion: “Gérald Darmanin and the others are walking on a thread, between loyalty to the president and the desire to make their voices heard. They cannot break with the presidential camp now, because we are still a long way from 2027, they would lose their ability to act and their media credit”.
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