2023-09-27 05:30:07
The Minister Delegate in charge of public accounts, Thomas Cazenave (left), in Auch, September 21, 2023. NEDIR DEBBICHE / PHOTOPQR / LA DEPECHE DU MIDI / MAXPPP
Thursday September 21, on the road which takes him to the Auch tax center, Gers prefecture, where he is making his first trip as minister to promote the 2024 budget, Thomas Cazenave had the time to immerse himself in a IFOP survey published the same morning. Not on taxes, inflation or savings, but on the political climate in Bordeaux, « [sa] ville ». Three years after his crushing defeat in the municipal election (12.7%) in the Gironde metropolis, his possible candidacy is being tested again for the 2026 election. But there is still a way to go: little known, he only collects a third of favorable opinions. “That’s three times more than in 2020! »smiles the man who grew up in the Bastide district and still sees himself as “the only truly Bordeaux candidate”.
No one, including him, expected his appointment to Bercy in July. Even if this financial inspector is a veteran of the house (“He’s one of us.”, bluntly admits a director of the ministry). Doubly so, since he occupied both the imposing Colbert building, which houses the general inspection of finances, and the hotel of ministers, where he was deputy director of Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet, in 2016 – the time where he publishes The State in start-up mode (Eyrolles, 2017).
Aware of the notoriety that the role of minister gives him, he hardly hesitated when the secretary general of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler, called him. And on the evening of his appointment, July 21, Thomas Cazenave jumped on the TGV, his files under his arm, to reappear a few hours later on the Caudéran market, in the Gironde city, distributing handshakes and good words.
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“My life is Bordeaux, admits this quadra with a very wise physique, well-trimmed beard and small round glasses, who never gets more animated than when he talks about it. I am in Paris during the week to take up my position. » Every weekend, he goes back to Bordeaux where he finds his family, who have not returned to the capital, and works on his local roots. “ If I am a minister, it is thanks to the people of Bordeaux,” slips the one who was elected deputy for Gironde in 2022 and who still remains a municipal councilor and metropolitan councilor. It was also in Bordeaux, and not in Paris, that he met King Charles III on Friday September 22.
Listening to Bordeaux wine growers
Since he replaced Gabriel Attal – appointed to national education – in the budget, his career has also been scrutinized in this city which has seen Jacques Chaban-Delmas or Alain Juppé – both mayor of Bordeaux and prime minister. On this day when Thomas Cazenave walks the departmental roads of Gers, Alain Juppé is also in Bercy, where the finance inspectorate has invited him to present his Memoirs.
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