three things to know about Aurélien Rousseau, the new Minister of Health

“I am at work and I am at my task”, still assured François Braun, Thursday July 20 in the morning on the set of BFM TV, hinting that he would remain in government. A few hours later, the Minister of Health was finally officially dismissed, replaced by Aurélien Rousseau. This 47-year-old senior civil servant, who is being entrusted with an important ministerial portfolio for the first time, has already frequented the offices of several Prime Ministers, including that of the current, Elisabeth Borne, a few days ago. Franceinfo presents this new member of the executive, little known to the general public.

1He began his career as a history and geography teacher

Born in Alès, in the Gard, this former professor of history and geography first got involved in politics by taking his card from the Communist Party. In 2001, he joined the team of a communist assistant to the town hall of Paris, Pierre Mansat. Received in 2007 in the ENA competition, he joined the same promotion as another minister of Elisabeth Borne, Clément Beaune. In 2009, he joined the Council of State then returned three years later to the mayor of Paris, as deputy director in Bertrand Delanoë’s office, where he met Elisabeth Borne, at the time director general of urban planning for the city of Paris.

His rise continued in 2015 at Matignon, where he held the position of deputy director and social counselor of the cabinet to the socialist heads of government Manuel Valls then Bernard Cazeneuve. He also remains attached to his position as municipal councilor of Saint-Hilaire-de-Brethmas, in the Gard.

2He led the ARS Ile-de-France during the Covid-19 crisis

After a stint at the head of the Monnaie de Paris, Aurélien Rousseau took the reins of the Ile-de-France Regional Health Agency in the summer of 2018 and quickly faced the long emergency strike of 2019, then the Covid-19 epidemic. He must then manage the lack of masks and hospital beds and then the vaccination campaigns. From this experience he draws an essay, The Injury and the Reboundwhere he tells “how things in the state are played out, decisions are made”.

Tested by three years in this position, Aurélien Rousseau leaves ARS Ile-de-France in 2021, explaining that he wants “hear the little signals” For “not believing yourself above health problems”. “I need to catch my breath a bit, he then said to franceinfo. After months of incredible intensity that put me to the test.” The man remains marked by his passage in intensive care, because of a syndrome of Guillain-Barré, a neurological disease which occurred during his training at the ENA and which he evokes in a book, Goldilocks, released in 2016.

3He had just left the office of Elisabeth Borne

In May 2022, he “get back on the horse” and accepts the position of chief of staff offered to him at Matignon after the appointment of Elisabeth Borne. At the time, he even said that the former director general of the ARS of Ile-de-France had narrowly missed becoming the new Minister of Health, to succeed Olivier Véran. As a premonitory, Nicolas Revel, director general of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris had then entrusted to the World : “I have no doubt he would do that very well one day.”

At Matignon, the ex-communist stood out for his style, more to the left than that of the Prime Minister, less set back than his predecessors, and a good understanding between the two, relates The world. Aurélien Rousseau announced on Twitter on Monday that he was leaving THE “heart of the state and terminus of trouble“. And for good reason: in just over a year, Aurélien Rousseau had to manage the storm of pension reform in the shadow of his boss. Nearby Worldthe former boss of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, praises “a connoisseur of the social world”certainly “loyal to his leaders” but who “accept the contradiction” And “knows how to come down to the level of women and men”which is, according to the former union leader, “fundamental in this period”.