In the midst of waiting for the new government, Gérald Darmanin postpones his political return

Gérald Darmanin was due to make his political comeback on Sunday, September 15 in Tourcoing, but the resigning Minister of the Interior will ultimately postpone this meeting, pending the composition of the new government.

There political return, Gérald Darmanin’s “sausages, fries and beers” day, mixed with a speech, will finally take place on September 29, and no longer on September 15 as he had planned at the end of July. If the resigning Minister of the Interior is pushing back the date, it is because of the Olympic champions’ parade in Paris, Saturday September 14, and also because of the political situation. “Elementary republican elegance requires letting the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister work on the composition of a government, and not hindering this particular political moment”explains his entourage.

When Gérald Darmanin asked his MP friends, they told him it would be better to postpone. One minister thinks he is right because “Nobody knows what’s going to happen, so be careful, be careful.” Indeed, it will be easier for Gérald Darmanin to know in what capacity he is speaking. An advisor to the executive says: “He will not be able to have the same tone in his speech depending on whether he is a minister in the Barnier government or a simple deputy from the North advocating a revaluation of work”.

Indeed, Gérald Darmanin wants to focus his speech in Tourcoing on the social question, for which he read the sociologist Pierre Rosanvallon and the geographer Christophe Guilluy. “In this period, every sentence would be subject to interpretation, with the risk that it would be said that he was trying to position himself.”admits a relative, “he wants us to talk about his proposals”At the end of September, Gérald Darmanin hopes for a less confused political landscape and to be certain of his own future.

For months, Gérald Darmanin has been blowing hot and cold about his ministerial future. When Gabriel Attal became Prime Minister in January, he announced that after the Olympic Games his mission at Place Beauvau would be over. At the end of June, he said he wanted to sit in parliament, convinced that everything would happen in the Assembly. But this summer his desire to leave the executive was no longer so obvious. “He understood that to have weight it is better to have a big ministerial portfolio”says a Macronist ironically. According to a close friend, “Part of him thinks it’s the end of a cycle, and part of him is at the President’s disposal.”.

“The President would like to keep himassures a minister, why not at the Quai d’Orsay”. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gérald Darmanin would not be against it. In the former majority, some were amused to see this summer, on Instagram, that he had immersed himself in reading a former ambassador. Last Sunday, Gérald Darmanin spoke with Michel Barnier, at the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, but “It was very factual, focused on the security of the Olympic Games” we are assured. At this stage, it is impossible to know whether Gérald Darmanin will be on the list that the Prime Minister will submit to Emmanuel Macron.