At around 6 pm on Monday, December 11, just as the Assemblée Nationale had inflicted a stinging defeat on Gérald Darmanin by rejecting the immigration bill, his phone vibrated several times. The prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, wanted to see him. The interior minister didn't even bother to answer. He instead asked to see Emmanuel Macron, who had just returned from a trip to Toulouse. It was the president who appointed him, and so, as a "man of honor," he must place his fate in the hands of the president.

Darmanin wasn't taking any risks. He knew that Macron had no interest in adding a government crisis to the parliamentary crisis and that the president doesn't like to act under pressure, especially when it comes from the opposition. "There's no question of your resigning. Let's let the bill go on its way," said the president during their tête-à-tête, before joining actor Christian Clavier and his guests in the Elysée reception room to present him with the insignia of Officer of the Legion of Honor. Darmanin "handed in his resignation" to Macron, "who refused it," the Elysée announced shortly after. The next day, on the fringes of the Council of Ministers, the moment circulated between government ranks: "Do you know why Darmanin handed in his resignation to Macron? Because Borne would have accepted it!"

While the joke reflects the ill-tempered delight of some members of the government at seeing the highly divisive interior minister take a blow, it also speaks volumes about the very poor relations between the PM and the government's number three. On Monday evening, Macron tasked this unlikely duo with "finding a way" to save the bill rejected by the Assemblée a few moments earlier. Everything will be back on track by January 2024, he said privately according to Le Monde's sources, but for the time being, collective interest dictates that the immigration bill should go through. Macron, in a hurry to turn the page on this drama, wants the matter to be settled before the winter holidays begin.

A little later that evening, at an urgently convened dinner at the prime minister's residence, Borne confided, in particularly crude terms, her lack of enthusiasm at the idea of having to save Darmanin's neck. Darmanin was no more enthusiastic. Seeing the woman he offered to replace in July take the reins marked a second humiliation for the interior minister, after the slap he received at the Assemblée Nationale. "If you want me to leave, and do a bill with another minister, do it, there's no problem," he said over dinner, jaws clenched. On Tuesday evening at the Elysée, in front of the majority government, including the prime minister, Macron insisted: "Gérald must be included in the discussions." For a week, despite their lack of mutual respect, the duo, condemned to get along, conducted consultations together, with Borne taking the lead. "She leads the discussions, he only intervenes when necessary," said senator Hervé Marseille.

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