In July 2023, the government welcomed nine new members and at the start of the school year, these new ministers are still looking for their feet and their place with a President of the Republic who occupies all the space.
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It’s never easy going back to school for the first time, for a minister or for a schoolboy. It takes a little time to pack your school bag, put on the costume and measure the load. We can therefore be a little lenient with the newcomers, one of them was precisely the guest of the 8:30 am of Franceinfo, the new Minister of Housing, Patrice Vergriete. But this reshuffle at the beginning of the summer aimed to give more weight to the government, to rebalance the executive, to offer more oxygen to more visible and more audible ministers. However, in the majority, several parliamentarians are beginning to doubt the effectiveness of the maneuver, not so much because of the newcomers as because of the “dirlo”, the director, Emmanuel Macron, this head of state who takes all the place.
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The message of the Saint-Denis meetings
The phenomenon was accentuated with the spectacular staging of the famous meetings in Saint-Denis on August 30. Twelve hours of face-to-face behind closed doors between Emmanuel Macron and party leaders, without ministers, without advisors, without journalists. A brief communication in the Council of Ministers the following week and an exchange of letters between the president and party leaders. Several members of the government are still wondering what was really said during this closed session and which could concern their sector. Emmanuel Macron couldn’t have better told them that he takes care of everything and they take care of the rest.
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Novice ministers are not the only ones to be bypassed by the Élysée. The case of Gabriel Attal is emblematic. Well versed in government work, but a newcomer to education, he had the majority of his back-to-school announcements stolen by the head of state. As for Élisabeth Borne and her Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, they did not have the leisure to announce the next holding of a social conference: Emmanuel Macron reserved the first for party leaders. Enough to console newcomers to government who are discovering how the executive works. They are not treated any worse than the elders.