After a tense end to 2023, the Head of State wants to find a clear political direction and is working behind the scenes to “set things in rhythm”.
General blues alert. After the first 18 months of the second five-year term which strained the teams, and not only at the Élysée, the atmosphere is gloomy. “Seven years that I was in this universe, I had the feeling of no longer having any breath“, says an advisor who has just slammed the door with a good excuse: “Politically, I didn’t understand what we were wearing and where we were going“.
If he promised a meeting with the Nation in January, in the meantime Emmanuel Macron is therefore looking for his direction. Again and again, some will say. At the end of the year, after a stormy episode around the immigration law passed by Gérald Darmanin, the head of state is enjoying a little rest these days at Fort Brégançon, in the Var. His diary is completely empty before the speech for greetings to the French scheduled for Sunday December 31 at 8 p.m., then the Council of Ministers next Wednesday. Until then we are busy behind the scenes, and in particular at the Élysée, where a reshuffle is underway in the president’s entourage.
“Roll up your sleeves”
The year 2024 promises to be busy, after the big blow of fatigue at the end of 2023 linked to recent crises: the pension reform, the chaotic vote on the immigration law and the “ideological victory“claimed by the National Rally, or even, an unprecedented fact in Macronie, a minister – that of Health, Aurélien Rousseau – who resigns. “I am for stopping collective depression and this self-fulfilling side”sweeps away another advisor.
“If we keep telling ourselves that Le Pen is in power, that it smells like the end of her reign and that Europeans are lost: we might as well go home.”
An advisor to Emmanuel Macronat franceinfo
So, like him, there are several of them “want to roll up your sleeves“After the confectioners’ truce, the start of the school year and the promise of a return to basics to put an end to the idea of a five-year term that will never start,”I have 3 and a half years left“, Emmanuel Macron often repeats behind the scenes. Emancipation, Europe, battle for full employment, there is no shortage of challenges. And one of his close friends testifies: “What annoys the President is starting the conversation with ‘there is no direction’, as if there was no overall philosophy“.
New faces for “perfect alignment”
However, to avoid this impotent trial, the head of state is playing havoc in his entourage. Thus, one of his oldest and closest collaborators will change offices: Patrick Strozda, his chief of staff, since 2017. This man in the shadows, an essential cog in life at the Elysée, will be replaced at the beginning of January by Patrice Faure, 56 years old, a former soldier, prefect, who was high commissioner in New Caledonia. “There must be perfect alignment between what the president wants and what his teams feel“, translated a minister to franceinfo.
The waltz of advisors, commonplace in ministries, also swept away Frédéric Michel, communications advisor to Emmanuel Macron, who returned to the private sector. To replace him, and set to music a form of story-telling, the name of Jonathan Guémas comes up insistently: “It’s not official, but it’s done“, assures a minister to franceinfo.
Pen of the Head of State until the end of the 2022 campaign, Jonathan Guémas then suggested the concept of “French-style” ecology and spoke again of “decivilization”, this concept borrowed from the pollster Jérôme Fourquet. “We only win when we conquer“, reassures a friend who recently heard Emmanuel Macron express his desire to “pace things“, in a Nation which sometimes experiences “uproar“.