Guillaume Kasbarian is already referring to him as a "counterpart." Hastily, perhaps even enthusiastically, the French civil service minister hailed, in a tweet on Wednesday, November 13, the announcement that Elon Musk was being appointed as co-head of a future department of "government efficiency." The world's richest man has been tasked by Donald Trump, the next president of the United States, whose campaign he had partly funded, with a mission to "dismantle government bureaucracy."
"Congratulations on accepting this great challenge @elonmusk! I look forward to sharing best practices for dealing with excess bureaucracy, cutting red tape and rethinking public organisations to benefit the efficiency of public employees," posted Kasbarian on X, in English.
At a time when Europe has become frightened by Trump's "totally uninhibited agenda," in President Emmanuel Macron's words, the minister's largely unfiltered message has made part of the political class shudder. Does the 37-year-old minister embody the risk of a "Trump-ization" of French political life that some political scientists have spoken of?
"We had thought that Trumpism in France was limited to the far right. We were wrong. We have G. Kasbarian, the French Elon Musk without the electricity," posted Socialist leader Olivier Faure, on the same social media platform. Within Macron's coalition, the left wing struggled to conceal its discomfort. "I hadn't understood that we had the same agenda as Elon Musk," quipped former minister Clément Beaune.
Kasbarian's comments, which could cause further unrest at a time when civil servants' unions are already considering strikes, were not well received by the prime minister's office. At the end of a cabinet meeting, government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon tried to calm the issue. "My colleague Guillaume has been extremely mobilized for years on the need to simplify and de-bureaucratize the French administration. He congratulated his counterpart, and that's the end of it," she said.
Yet, speaking privately to an elected official from Macron's Renaissance party, she said that "at [the prime minister's office], they didn't laugh at all at this tweet."
"Welcoming the appointment of a counterpart, whose administration was democratically elected, is not the same as supporting it," justified a source in Kasbarian's entourage.
Kasbarian, who as housing minister spearheaded legislation against illegal occupations of properties, is nicknamed the "cost-killer" for the cuts he intends to make in simplifying French administration. He was not the only one to applaud the South African billionaire's new role: "An anti-bureaucratic axe committee, I've dreamed of it and @elonmusk vis going to do it!" wrote, on X, Valérie Pécresse the former presidential candidate for right-wing Les Républicains. Meanwhile, Sacha Houlié, a left-leaning former supporter of Macron, concluded that "Kasbarian is giving in to anti-public service populism."