Nothing is certain yet, but the wait has been so long that the head of state has somewhat condemned himself to install a woman in Matignon. If, after three weeks of suspense, he ended up appointing a man, his decision would produce a real deceptive effect in public opinion. And it would be interpreted as one more snub for women in politics. Because it is the executive itself which, from the evening of the second round, let the idea filter through that the priority of the president was indeed to appoint a woman.
For two reasons: firstly because it only happened once, more than thirty years ago, during the second term of François Mitterrand. He had promoted Edith Cresson. It is enough to take a look at our European neighbours, German, British or Scandinavian, to measure to what extent this exception constitutes a democratic anomaly for our country. Then because Emmanuel Macron is himself accused of governing by relying mainly on men. The government is equal, but the first circle of the Head of State is male. Last week, the family photo presenting the majority candidates for the legislative elections confirmed this with the quartet Richard Ferrand-François Bayrou-Edouard Philippe and Stanislas Guérini at the podium.
It therefore remains to find the woman who corresponds to the composite portrait drawn up by Emmanuel Macron himself: someone with an ecological fiber, a social dimension, attached to the question of production and equipped with political experience.
In recent days, we have heard the names of former ministers of the Hollande five-year term: Marisol Touraine and Audrey Azoulay, but also those of the current holder of the Labor portfolio, Elisabeth Borne, or the former minister of Jacques Chirac and close to Nicolas Sarkozy, Catherine Vautrin. Only here, if it drags on, and if the Head of State hesitated a lot, it is, according to his entourage, because none of them perfectly meets all the criteria he had mentioned.
Some lean to the left when the country tilts to the right, others have a profile that is a little too techno and not political enough, and others have so far not shown any interest in the ecological issue. It should be noted in passing that the two Prime Ministers of the first five-year term, Edouard Philippe and Jean Castex, did not tick all these boxes either. And this is where we see that we do not require the same perfection a priori, on paper, when it comes to a male candidacy…