Like a pebble in Bruno Retailleau and Laurent Wauquiez’s shoe. After a fratricidal struggle that almost turned with Rachida Dati, Michel Barnier finally won his bet on Sunday night by becoming a deputy of Districts 5 and Sixth of Paris.
If the role that the former prime minister would adopt, fell into a motion of censure last December, remains vague, no world has no doubt about his presidential ambitions.
“Obviously, Michel Barnier did not come to ask some questions from time to time in the hemicle. If he returns, it is to stop qualifying it as ex and have visibility that he will not have any other place at this time,” observes a LR deputy with BFMTV.
“We will not be at home”
The now new deputy of Paris, who did not stop during his visit to Matignon to claim his anchor in Savoy, will probably have the atmosphere in a group with a particular alchemy.
Without leader during the last solution, the 49 deputies of the group now led by Laurent Wauquiez are often seen as independent people who only owe their political survival and only take their orders.
The September 8 test: a third of the deputies voted against the confidence in the government of François Bayrou, even when its president, who had left them the freedom to vote. As for Bruno Retilleau, president of the LR, he had not even consulted his own troops he announced to support the prime minister at that time. In summary, the atmosphere does not always laugh and the knives are often sharp.
“What is certain is that I advise you not to arrive on the field conquered in a relatively diverse group. We will not be in the guard before him as a man, especially because he did not make a miracle in Matignon”, a representative chosen near the Minister of Resignation of the Interior.
Tensions to get to the budget
Officially, time is not concern within the movement. On the contrary, “this arrival can only do good in the National Assembly and the Law as a whole,” rejoiced Pierre-Henri Dumont, deputy secretary general of Republicans. But the former prime minister could quickly play his own score, starting with the budget. Several measures that had brought Murignon erected their own camp, beginning with the disinxation of retirement pensions about inflation and the increase in deductibles in the medication boxes, today considered by LR as a “middle class tax.”
Michel Barnier had finally retired, to the great relief of right -wing deputies who began with Laurent Wauquiez, who had announced otherwise in pensions.
As for the provisions for the richest and most large exceptional companies that they had also promoted before falling, they were equally internally. However, François Bayrou had taken his account in the 2025 budget finally voted and also intended to integrate them into the 2026 budget.
Sébastien Lecornu, who has remained very difficult to achieve on the measures of his budget, could recover them on his own. What will Michel Barnier do? Meet the skepticism of his camp or defense measures that he himself launched last year?
“All this will not always be very easy,” says a LR senator who appreciates it.
“A very nice profile” to replace Laurent Wauquiez
Not to mention that if Michel Barnier is officially positioned for the presidential elections, he will not be made only friend. Neither Bruno Retilleau, unknown to the French before his arrival at the Beauvau place and now considered presidential, nor Laurent Wauquiez, who always sees himself in the race, will unwind a red carpet.
The situation could be even more delicate if the president of the group entered the government. Then it must be replaced, offering a nice Morocco to Michel Barnier if he was interested. The situation could reveal tensions among the relatives of Laurent Wauquiez, who regularly evokes the name of deputy LR Michèle Tabarot to happen, and those who could declare for their candidacy. However, one of his former collaborators in Brussels judges “a notch above others.”
“People who have been prime minister, who know all European leaders and mysteries of the European Commission, there are no 150. It would still be a very beautiful profile to lead the deputies,” said one of his faithful.
What about the rest? “We’ll see, but I’m not sure we have a luxury to do without this type of talent.”
“A wish around him? I doubt it”
More severe, others could argue that his very beautiful CV had not prevented him from losing the internal primary of the LR in 2021 to designate his presidential candidate. Michel Barnier had failed to qualify in the second round.
“Is it your passage to Matignon, which was not a frank success, will you create a desire around it? Frankly, I doubt it a little,” said a macronista deputy on the right.
Even if that means looking in the rearview mirror, we can also be interested in the case of François Fillon, the last right minister that had sat in the assembly after his departure as Matignon. After presiding over the group for a few months in 2012, he preferred to become a simple deputy, dedicate himself essentially to the preparation of the presidential elections and the writing of his books before winning primary school, being a candidate in 2017 and exploiting in full flight.
Is Michel Barnier more likely? Superstitious, may adopt in the Assembly the same technique as during primary school in 2021: tightened a pea in the pocket of its costume. Not any stone! This talisman, destined to hunt destiny badly, comes from a path of hiking of Savoy.
Source: BFM TV
