The holidays have finally started. After a family-friendly dinner in the gardens of Matignon last Thursday, the members of the government were authorized to escape until August 23 at the latest. Three weeks of vacation to rest, without however completely lifting the foot. “Stay mobilized,” said Emmanuel Macron during the last Council of Ministers, stressing that the start of the school year would be “no simpler” than the past year.
A warning in line with the traditional instructions from Matignon: “Ministers who wish to be absent during this period must choose a destination compatible with their responsibilities.” Exit, therefore, exotic destinations, and place in proximity, staying a maximum of two hours from a prefecture – if possible on national territory. Message received five out of five by those concerned, who favored France over European destinations.
Heliotropism obliges, the South-East stands out as one of the most popular destinations for the executive. Like the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, who will go to the Var after a last trip, Wednesday, to her constituency of Calvados. On the program, “a lot of reading” and “walking” for the head of government, who will not be very far from Emmanuel Macron, who arrived Saturday evening at Fort Brégançon. Not very far either from the government spokesman, Olivier Véran, who must also stop in the department.
A few kilometers from the neighboring Alpes-Maritimes, where the Keeper of the Seals, Éric Dupond-Moretti, and his companion, the singer Isabelle Boulay, will be. As for Sabrina Agresti-Roubache (City), who again represents Marseille at the top of the state after ten years of government scarcity, she opted for a trip to her sister, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence , after a stint in Corsica, where her husband is rector. Island of Beauty where she may meet Clément Beaune (Transport) or Catherine Colonna (Foreign Affairs), who joins family there. Finally, Aurore Bergé (Solidarity) will divide her time between the Alps and Normandy.
A little further north, precisely, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes will also see a few ministers parade. Including Franck Riester (Relations with Parliament), expected in Nernier (Haute-Savoie), a town of 6,000 inhabitants which borders Lake Geneva and where he spent all his childhood summers. Ditto for Olivia Grégoire (SME), who is going to visit her in-laws in Haute-Loire. Right next to the newly appointed Philippe Vigier (Overseas), or even Jean-Noël Barrot (Digital), who will go to the lands of his father, Jacques, former deputy for Puy-en-Velay.
That’s it for the rest part. But the summer period does not always rhyme with idleness, and all the ministers plan to combine the obligatory with the pleasant. “We can rest, but we remain on the lookout, we warn in the entourage of Élisabeth Borne. Some will work, especially those who have to delve into their files” for the start of the school year. This is for example the case of Christophe Béchu. On vacation at home, in Anjou, the Minister for the Ecological Transition will do a “daily briefing” with his cabinet on “urgent” subjects. In particular, he will keep an eye on the drought and the heat wave which threaten the country.
Ditto for his Secretary of State Sarah El Haïry (Biodiversity), who “remains mobilized and available” despite her vacation in Uzès (Gard). “I hope to have time to read,” laughs the interested party, who has given up the Youth portfolio and the Universal National Service (SNU) file to Prisca Thevenot. Which warns: “Rest time, yes. Holidays, no. If the month of August is generally a month of break, it is not so for the youth services which are at work in our territories”, she argues.
Also studious, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo (Health professions) intends to use her stay in the Luberon to “immerse herself in (her) readings in order to continue to dig into the subject of the end of life”. The opportunity, also, to organize according to his entourage some meetings with health professionals from Vaucluse. Civil servants whom Stanislas Guerini (Transformation and Public Service) also intends to visit, but rather around the Basque coast, where he will be. After a weekend in Norway with her relatives, the Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubel, will go to her family home in Vaucluse for a fortnight. Two weeks during which she must prepare the anti-harassment plan, the presentation of which is scheduled for September.
As for Bruno Le Maire (Economy and Finance), he begins his vacation with a week in Chamonix, then he will return to his resort nestled on the heights of Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle (Pyrénées-Atlantiques). This village located about thirty kilometers from Biarritz shelters the house in which he spends most of his holidays: an old stone farmhouse overlooking the valley and the mountains. A quiet place, where his wife and four sons accompany him regularly.
For others, finally, the holidays will wait. Just installed in his new offices on the rue de Grenelle, Gabriel Attal (National Education) is working to prepare for the start of the school year. Initially supposed to go to Corsica, the now ex-Minister of Public Accounts is “for the moment far from all that”, according to his entourage. Just like Secretary of State Sonia Backès (Citizenship). “No vacation,” says a relative of the elected ultramarine, who chairs the southern province of New Caledonia – where she remained after accompanying Emmanuel Macron in Noumea last week. “There, it’s not the holidays like in mainland France, but the middle of the school year”, adds the same source.
One year before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, are finally expected in Polynesia to attend one of the stages of the professional circuit of the League Surf World (WSL): Tahiti Pro. The opportunity for them to meet the local executive in order to take stock of the progress of the work necessary for the organization of the events planned off the Pacific. Upon returning from this trip, Gérald Darmanin could then go to Marseille for a few days.
A choice independent of the recent movement of anger by the police, born in Marseille, but linked to purely practical reasons: the residence of the prefect, already borrowed by Emmanuel Macron in 2017, can easily be secured there. However, hardly had he arrived there, last summer, that the Minister of the Interior had to repack his suitcases because of the violent fires which had ravaged part of the Southwest at the time. Threat still as strong this year.
