Special envoy to Tourcoing
A rose garden and a forest of shirts, sometimes embellished with a suit jacket. A good part of the gratin of the presidential majority found themselves Sunday in the botanical garden of Tourcoing to discuss the working classes. In his northern stronghold, Gérald Darmanin invited a thousand people – including many elected officials – to eat “fries and sausages bought at Auchan” during an unprecedented political comeback for him. First imagined as the starting point for an escape to other horizons, it finally became a platform for the assessment of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.
Initially not invited to this meeting built in distrust of her, Elisabeth Borne was asked by the Elysée to go there to conclude the day. “An informal event,” she downplayed. Bruno Roger-Petit, Emmanuel Macron’s adviser, was also there to smell the atmosphere. “Debating is respecting each other. To come together is to appreciate each other. There is no fear in seeing women and men interested in the future of their country come together to debate. Only good can come out of it, ”said the Minister of the Interior during a flat speech of about twenty minutes, read beforehand by Emmanuel Macron. Sent as a scout, an adviser to Elisabeth Borne monitored the content of the exchanges before the arrival of the head of government. “Our unity is our strength. We must protect it at all costs and not pave the way to extremes ourselves,” warned the Prime Minister. No question of reliving a new “recovery vintage”, named after the thunderous return of Arnaud Montebourg nine years earlier.
For his presumptuousness, he was then removed from the government the next day, replaced at short notice by a certain … Emmanuel Macron. Obviously, the head of state succeeded on Sunday in keeping his minister in his lap, while the debate over his succession suddenly erupted this summer. The fault of the summer confidences of Gérald Darmanin, certifying in our columns that he was now turning towards 2027. “I do not want the working classes to join a hateful rally”, reaffirmed the minister on Sunday, while ensuring that he was not “in a dynamic other than that of ideas”. While affirming that he was, as a deputy from the North, “a successor of Father Lemire, a disciple of social Catholicism who sometimes fought against his bishop, against his friends, against a capital that was a little too selfish”.
There has been a lot of talk about the Head of State’s balance sheet, more than an update of the Macronist discourse on the working classes. “Our efforts are not always recognized in their fair measure”, regretted Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor, with supporting figures. “Statistical reality is disputed,” he denounced. “A feeling, even when it does not correspond to the truth of the figures and the rationality of reality, is not to be mistaken”, retorted his friend Gérald Darmanin. The remark also applies to Elisabeth Borne, whom he often finds too “techno”. She was however almost praised on Sunday by the “first cop in France”, who dreamed of replacing her last July: “I know that the great social sensitivity of the people of the North, you share it.” The personal “journey” of the Prime Minister “is an example for all of us”, said the Minister of the Interior. Don’t throw any more! If several LR parliamentarians made the trip (MP Virginie Duby-Muller, senators Marc-Philippe Daubresse, Pierre-Jean Verzelen and Stéphane Le Rudulier), some were frightened to see the macronie put their friend’s initiative under a bell of Beauvau. “The arrival of Élisabeth Borne changes the situation, so I have decided to cancel my presence. Of course, I remain open to dialogue with the Minister of the Interior,” said MP Julien Dive.
Within the majority, criticism has not been lacking. Absent, Bruno Le Maire assumes to trace his path around 2027 differently. “Now is not the time to make political calculations”, confides the Minister of the Economy to Figaro. His colleague Clément Beaune (Transport) went to Loiret on Sunday with Renaissance activists: “The unity of our political camp is a treasure and an obligation. It is the backbone of our movement and we must defend it,” he warned. So many friendly pressures which put a veil on the gathering of Gérald Darmanin but which cannot conceal the ferments of his ambition nor his strategy to satisfy it. “There weren’t many LRs today, but a lot of UMPs,” noted LR deputy Alexandre Vincendet, not far from Catherine Vautrin, Jérôme Lavrilleux, Sébastien Lecornu, Gil Avérous or Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. As if a new right-wing party had formed here, in Tourcoing, which does not say its name. And which dates for the future.
