"Can I say a few words here?" On the steps of the prime minister's official residence, Michel Barnier was gently impatient. On Thursday, September 5, the oldest prime minister of the Fifth Republic, 73, was replacing the youngest, 35. "After the Mickey Mouse Club
, it's time for the boomers!" sneered one of President Emmanuel Macron's confidants.

But before leaving, Attal had a few words to say. Maybe too many, in the eyes of the former European commissioner. But after a 20-minute speech, the large crowd of ministers and staff amassed in the courtyard of the Hôtel de Matignon applauded the departing prime minister whom the foreign press has dubbed "baby Macron."

A hint of bitterness hung in the air. Attal, who had been in charge of day-to-day affairs since his resignation on July 16, never quite came to terms with the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale by the president on June 9. The decision brought his rise to a screeching halt, bringing to an end the tenure he only began on January 9. "Eight months is a short time. It's too short. There's frustration," admitted Attal, who is preparing to rejoin the Assemblée Nationale to take on the full-time leadership of Macron's party in parliament.

In his allotted time, the now ex-prime minister listed the projects undertaken under his watch (the fight against juvenile delinquency, ecology, and so on), while acknowledging that nothing had come to fruition. "In other circumstances, we would have brought this work to a successful conclusion," he said. Then, he youthfully blurted out to his successor: "The measures are on your desk," inviting Barnier to finish his work.

Attal is starting a new chapter. And setting a date. "The future belongs to us," he said, as if puffed up with ambition, in a "very personal" speech which, according to his entourage, he wrote himself. The former prime minister even borrowed the accents of a candidate on the campaign trail to proclaim his love of the country and his fellow citizens. "I want to tell the French how much I love them," he said, praising a "viscerally indomitable" people.

The 60 days that followed the result of the parliamentary elections offered a sorry political spectacle, dominated by partisan squabbles and political calculations. "Yes," he said, "French politics is sick." But, he added, "I believe that healing is possible," as if he were part of the solution, before launching into an ode to freedom. A freedom rediscovered after being under the authority of Macron. "What more beautiful value than freedom!" he concluded, definitively free of the president and ready to take flight.