Between amazement and anger, the Republicans are taking the blame. One of his faces, and not the least, closed the door on rue de Vaugirard to join rue de Valois. From now on, Rachida Dati is part of the Attal government, as Minister of Culture. A take of war which made the new host of Matignon, guest of the TF1 news, “very happy” this Thursday, January 11.
“We went from Malraux to Dati in 70 years… It’s abysmal,” we whisper, sorry, on the right. It is above all a frank surprise. A few hours before the official announcement, a heavyweight choked: “But stop with your nonsense, you’re funny! I do not believe it at all. And then, go to Culture, in what capacity?” This person very close to the mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris also assured: “I had it again very recently… It’s impossible.” Nonetheless, the thing is done. And after the jumble of rumors and murmurs, the worries and the phone calls, the right feels on its shoulders what it already knows well: a certain inevitability.
Opposite, in the Macron camp, we rejoice: “She is a woman who leaves no one indifferent, a woman of commitment, of energy, who has fought all her life to obtain what she wanted to obtain,” believes Gabriel Attal. “It’s above all a betrayal,” comments LR. “They can bring in three Dati that won’t give them a majority!” Very quickly, tongues on the right thought they could discern in this appointment of the former Minister of Justice the hand, so harmful for LR, of Nicolas Sarkozy: “Unthinkable that she would have gone there without his agreement…”. This appointment, to listen to them, is a new stage in the break initiated by the former right-wing president with the party, initiated during the campaign of Valérie Pécresse (during which Sarkozy was whistled at campaign meetings) and of which the terrible score will not have prevented the “Chinese torment”, according to one elected official, that the party is suffering.
The boss of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti, was informed by Rachida Dati herself at the end of the afternoon. The councilor was then removed from the post of president of the LR national council and, by choosing to join the Attal government, left the party. While maintaining her status as president of the opposition group “Changer Paris”… Which certainly makes some people cringe. While waiting for the next Republican Strategic Committee, scheduled for Tuesday, some – including Senator Francis Szpiner – are already calling for his head. Thursday evening, the phones heated up. Gérard Larcher and Éric Ciotti spoke to each other. And the party executives, both annoyed and sorry, share a form of sad compassion towards Eric Ciotti who wanted to believe in the word of the young prime minister. The same one who assured him in person that there would be no poaching on the right. Obviously disappointed, the boss of LR regrets a “stab in the back”. A tenor adds: “It’s a declaration of war on the part of Macron. The rest of the five-year term will be tense with the right. It’s inevitable.”
In the retailist ranks, people are getting annoyed and are advocating a “real break”: “Eric Ciotti has been fooled from every angle. This is the consequence of the old right with which he had made a pact to win the LR presidency. He is paying the price today.” One of them blurted out: “I don’t even blame Rachida: what is LR proposing today? For the Europeans, we have guys who we point to with our fingertips with clothespins; for 2027, we have candidates who are hiding… We are too powerless to offer any hope.” Hard blow, then.
But Rachida Dati, “it’s also one less burden that we will become aware of over time,” we want to believe. The entourage of Laurent Wauquiez (who was warned by Éric Ciotti around 6 p.m.), admits: “This is not good news, obviously.” And adds: “Does Dati’s appointment change the fundamentals? The fundamentals are a macronie who arrives exhausted after ten years of exercising power. Dati or not, in 2027, the French will be waiting for a new offer.”
