The returns are categorical: Stanislas Guerini will not be able to keep both hats. “He already doesn’t have a minute left to devote to the movement”says a spokesperson. “He didn’t really want it anymore either”completes another.
While waiting for the installation of a new direction, it is a duo which, in a very informal way, pilot LREM: Marie Guévenoux, number 2 of the party, and Richard Ferrand, president of the National Assembly and the executive office of the movement. That’s it for the interim. Behind the scenes, this is activated for the future, that is to say after the legislative elections of June 12 and 19. When En Marche will disappear to make way for this new movement mentioned by Emmanuel Macron on April 6. We already know the name: Renaissance. We know more or less the outlines: it will be the merger of En Marche with more modest formations created by ministers – Agir, En Commun, Territoires de Progrès.
And there is what we don’t yet know: when the founding congress of Renaissance will take place, what its statutes will be and who will lead it. One personality to watch: Stéphane Séjourné. This close friend of Emmanuel Macron, ex-political adviser at the Elysée, was in the first circle during the two presidential campaigns, 2017 and 2022. It is him that the head of state has personally charged with structuring Renaissance.
At the moment, Stéphane Séjourné is therefore working on writing the statutes, negotiating with the other parties, drafting the charter of this new movement, and defining its territorial structure. He is a serious contender for the succession of Stanislas Guerini, pushed by part of the majority, that defined schematically as the left wing of Macronie. The 2017 records also support this. And let it be known that Séjourné has made known his availability and his desire to pilot Renaissance.
But those around him are procrastinating, because “the question is still premature”. A relative conceded, however, yesterday that in any case, if he were to lead this new party, it would only be for two years, the time to put it into orbit for the presidential election of 2027.
Stéphane Séjourné is not the only one eyeing the job. And besides, officially, no one is a candidate. But names are put forward. In addition to Stéphane Séjourné therefore, in a less serious way: Olivier Véran, the former Minister of Health, or Aurore Bergé, the vice-president of the En Marche group in the National Assembly.
And then there are those sentences that have not gone unnoticed, in Le Figaro Monday, May 23: those of a minister who wants “to talk about everything, to give your opinion, to express your sensitivity, to play politics.” A minister who warns that it is not in his “nature” to be “discreet”and who wants “help build” the new presidential party. The one who says this is the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. He too has his fan club in the majority. His friends dream of seeing him push his pawns. Not necessarily to take the party this summer. But why not in the medium term, with the approach of the next election.