Surprise and disruption are meant to be the main themes of the far-reaching changes undertaken by Emmanuel Macron to try and avoid a fiasco in the European elections in June. Two days after choosing Gabriel Attal to head the French government, overriding the doubts of most of the majority party leaders, the president welcomed Rachida Dati to the cabinet on Thursday, January 11, knowing that all eyes would be on her.
Media-savvy and controversial, the Les Républicains (LR, right-wing) mayor of Paris's 7th arrondissement was immediately expelled from her party, which is not part of the presidential majority. She is a Nicolas Sarkozy loyalist (she served as his justice minister from 2007 to 2009) who has, for the most part, freed herself from any other tutelage. In July 2021, Dati was charged with corruption and passive influence peddling in the investigation into her advisory services to former Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. This did not discourage Macron from choosing her to replace his former adviser, Rima Abdul Malak, who had fallen out of favor with the president, at the Ministry of Culture.
It's a risky move, especially in this role. It is designed to destabilize LR, and even foreshadow a possible Renaissance alliance with the Parisian right in the 2026 municipal elections, but it also has the appearance of an admission. The original Macron approach, conceived as an overcoming of the left and the right, has come to an end. To survive, the handle is now stuck to the right: Of the 14 ministers appointed or reappointed on Thursday, eight come from its ranks. Bruno Le Maire (economy), Gérald Darmanin (interior) and Sébastien Lecornu (defense) have kept their positions. Among the five new appointments, three are loyal to the head of state, such as Stéphane Séjourné, who joins the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs; two, Dati and Catherine Vautrin, are close allies of Sarkozy.
We didn't need the appointment of these two elected representatives to gauge the former president's new-found influence: a heartfelt tribute to the French who work, a promise to promote merit, an ode to energy and action, and a focus on the security forces. Gabriel Attal's first words and actions are modeled on those used by Sarkozy during his 2007 campaign, when he succeeded in narrowing far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen's electorate by appealing to a large part of the middle class.
Copy and paste
This copy-and-paste approach, designed to stem the momentum of the far-right Rassemblement National party, may well be the only way for Macron to revive his second term. But it has given rise to a curious impression: Instead of a forward march, there's a feeling of going backward, which neither surprise nor disruption can disguise. Within the majority, the left wing does not understand why it is being sacrificed, and the center does not appreciate being neglected.
The malaise is likely to be all the more hard to overcome given the difficulty of persuading the French people these are the right choices. A tightly-knit government based around former LR members and early Macron supporters called upon to lead the electoral battle seems incompatible with the weight of the issues to be dealt with: the Ministry of Housing has disappeared; national education, youth and sports have been grouped together at a time when, in the midst of preparations for the Olympic Games, each entity requires constant attention. Health, another priority for the French, will have to coexist with work and solidarity as one ministerial role. Let's hope Macron's forthcoming explanations will help dispel doubts and misunderstandings.