It will not lift a corner of the veil surrounding the rumors of reshuffle. Invited this Sunday by the “RTL-M6-Le Figaro Grand Jury”, the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, returned the ball to the Head of State, the only “master of clocks” who holds “the principle and the timing” . “There is a coach for the country. He makes his choices of his players on the field (…) with ambition for our country,” she evaded, without ruling out the imminence of a casting change.
While Élisabeth Borne’s days may be numbered at Matignon, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra also wanted to salute “a courageous woman (…) without fuss in her relationships” with whom she has “always very good work”. As for her own future within the government, the former boss of the Tennis Federation assured that she was not received last week by Emmanuel Macron, who consulted several ministers. Less than seven months before the Paris Olympic Games, however, a change of leadership at the Ministry of Sports remains unlikely. “No one owns their ministry. No one is essential or irreplaceable,” replied the woman who was still unknown eighteen months ago.
At the dawn of a possible reshuffle, which some hope will breathe new life into the government, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra also swept away any “fracture” within the presidential camp after the adoption at the end of December of the immigration bill . Faced with the hardening of the text, the left wing of the majority had nevertheless turned its back, and the now former Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, went so far as to resign. “There were debates, lively exchanges, sometimes difficult. We can talk about aches, contracture, but there is no tear, no fracture,” she insisted, affirming herself that she did not “like everything in this text.”
With her eyes fixed on the Games, the Minister of Sports prefers to talk about her files. Without, however, speaking out about his reputedly frosty relations with the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. The socialist did not hesitate to denounce the delays in lighting, judging at the end of November that transport in the Ile-de-France region would not be “ready” by summer. The minister then sent her back on the ropes, accusing her of “playing politics behind the Games”. “We’re making too much of this relationship I have with her. We are two important protagonists, the goal is to work well as a team. There is no discomfort, we have differences,” said the former tennis champion this time. Before conceding, a bit more bitter: “There is a small tendency that I find quite unpleasant to want to caricature myself as the tech on duty.”
In this Olympic marathon, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra must still meet the security challenge of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, scheduled for the Seine. The head of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti, notably suggested giving it up, as security cannot be fully guaranteed. “If we are in an extreme scenario with terrorist attacks on our soil, obviously, we will have to have an alternative,” she explained, while a radicalized Islamist killed a tourist in early December and injured several people near the platforms.
