Gérald Darmanin knows how to woo France's political elite: with a knife, a fork, and clinking glasses. It was 11.30 pm on Thursday, August 24, and for over three hours, the interior minister had been dining one-on-one with Richard Ferrand, the former president of the Assemblée Nationale, in the austere and deserted sub-prefecture building on the heights of Brest, Brittany. Away from prying eyes and ears, the two men indulged in their favorite pastime: talking about "popol," as French politics insiders nickname their business.
The timing was key. Three days later – this Sunday – Darmanin would be gathering his supporters in the town of Tourcoing, northern France, where he has been elected mayor twice. After the disappointment of not having been made prime minister by President Emmanuel Macron in the July 20 reshuffle, he will be stepping out of his lane to address the "popular classes."
Darmanin's rally will be a statement in reaction to the reappointment of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, even though Macron had briefly been on the verge of promoting the interior minister in her place, early in July. Some of the president's leading supporters – head of Macron's Renaissance party Stéphane Séjourné, Transport Minister Clément Beaune, and head of the centrist MoDem party François Bayrou – stood in Darmanin's way, believing that the appointment of the former member of Les Républicains (LR, right-wing) would shift the governing coalition's center of gravity too far to the right.
The Northener drew a conclusion: Such an alignment of the planets is highly unlikely to occur again before the end of Macron's second term. The next time the president looks for a new prime minister, he will choose a "pure Macronist," such as former agriculture minister Julien Denormandie or Education Minister Gabriel Attal, Darmanin believes. But now that he has an even larger portfolio, including France's urban policy and overseas territories, he considers himself at the head of a "little Matignon," in reference to the name of the prime minister's residence. And he has decided to emancipate himself and go on the offensive.
To achieve this, he intends to widen his audience. He wants to show the Macronists that he's not as right-wing as they think. "Politics is about creating your own space," he told Le Monde. In his view, the real divide is no longer between left and right, but between those who know "deep France" and those who live in city centers. So, at his Tourcoing rally, he will need support from the left to counterbalance his many supporters from the right. His friend Olivier Dussopt, the labor minister and a former Socialist, will be there. But the presence of Ferrand, also a former Socialist as well as being one of Macron's closest advisers, would make an impression.
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