Despite the protest which remains lively, the executive promises to turn the page on pensions. A question comes up regularly at the moment: wouldn’t it be time to change government to find some breath? A reshuffle… but who is now a candidate to join the government? Jean-Rémi Baudot’s political editorial
That’s one of the options on the table: a redesign. Changing the faces of government to try to create a new dynamic. It is a great classic of periods of political crisis. Except that a redesign raises two questions. First, redesign but for what? To relaunch the political machine, you need a project that is at least a little different, with new objectives, new projects, new priorities… If it’s changing everything to change nothing, what’s the point of changing?
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Then, redesign but with whom? Normally, offering a minister’s place cannot be refused. Except that in the current period, not so many of them want to join a government in difficulty.
Difficult for a minister to exist
In a second five-year term bogged down by an unpopular reform, being a minister is no longer the Holy Grail. Obviously, you always have a handful of ambitious people or courtiers who would see their name on the official photo around the President. But apart from a dozen Macronist deputies, often from the 2017 legislative elections, now seasoned but still far from responsibility, there are not many people to apply.
The reality is that it is very difficult to exist and to survive politically in a government with around forty members. Where most decisions are out of your hands. Where even your own hottest files are taken up by Matignon or the Elysée when the announcements are good. Let’s put aside the fact that your heritage becomes public and that you have more chances of winning a divorce than a medal… Being a minister in such a period is anything but a vacation.
As for Matignon, names are circulating to replace Elisabeth Borne. Among these names, there is the current president of the Senate. Gérard Larcher, a right-wing man who, on paper, would have the ability to bring together a majority and LR coalition. Sunday at the Grand Jury, it was very clear concerning Matignon: “If the President of the Republic offered it to me, I would refuse”.
There are many other names. Bruno Le Maire or Gérald Darmanin… But who would want to become Prime Minister in the current period? And who would really be able to bring a new majority under his name? Hard to say.
Regarding the ambitious who seem to want her place, it is with a touch of humor that Elisabeth Borne tells it in private: “Sometimes I want to tell them: live my life“.