After Bruno Le Maire resigned due to the controversy, the portfolio of the Armed Forces falls to Catherine Vautrin, who changes her super-ministry of Health, Labor and Solidarity for this sovereign position where she will have to direct French rearmament in the face of renewed geopolitical tensions.
Familiar with the mysteries of power, this 65-year-old former Chiracian will succeed Sébastien Lecornu, re-elected on Friday, October 10 in Matignon at the end of a week of political crisis.
This former LR, converted into a member and faithful soldier of the Renaissance, considered for Matignon at the beginning of the second five-year period, embodied with others the turn to the right of Emmanuel Macron, retained in successive governments (Attal, Barnier, Bayrou) since January 2024, mainly at the head of his social super-ministry, but also with a stint in the Territories.
A reinforced budget effort for Defense
For the Armed Forces and Veterans, subject to the approval of the 2026 budget project, you must work on updating the Military Programming Law (LPM) to accelerate the rearmament of the country in the face of the deterioration of security in Europe under the Russian threat.
President Emmanuel Macron announced in July that he wanted to reinforce the Defense budget effort, adding spending of 3.5 billion euros in 2026 and another 3 billion more in 2027.
Together with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, he will also have to find a way to try to start before the end of the year the next phase of the Scaf project for a future European fighter aircraft, currently blocked by the divergent interests of industrialists from both countries.
He has earned “respect” in the world of Health
At the head of social ministries, Catherine Vautrin has already shown that she is not afraid to go to the front. Convinced of the need to cut public spending, she supported several unpopular measures, including savings in the hospital, an increase in the rest to be paid by patients in medical consultations, or a proposal to reform unemployment insurance, denounced as violent by the unions, which finally regained control.
At the forefront of the thorny “end of life” bill, he demonstrated his skill during the first visit to the Assembly, which resulted in the adoption of two texts, one on the creation of assistance in dying and another on palliative care.
“At the time of marriage, we had quite tough debates for all of us, me the man on the left and her the woman on the right, but we met around the text on the end of life and we worked well together, with trust and clarity. (…) She is rigorous and fulfills what she says,” judges Olivier Falorni (MoDem), one of the main architects of the text in the Assembly.
In the field of health, for which Yannick Neuder was also responsible, he earned the “respect” of his interlocutors. Among doctors and pharmacists, several union representatives praise their “seriousness” and their “detailed knowledge of the files”, despite the “divergent points of view”. “Among the many ministers we have had, she stands out from the crowd,” one of them whispers.
Jacques Chirac’s minister several times
Catherine Vautrin joined the macro-granddaughter in 2022. After the re-election of Emmanuel Macron, she greeted “excellent news for France and Europe.” The president had even promised her Matignon, before preferring Élisabeth Borne, under pressure from Macronists who denounced her participation in the mobilization against marriage for all.
In the past, she held several government positions under the presidency of Jacques Chirac: Secretary of State for Integration (2004), for the Elderly (2004-2005), then Minister Delegate for Social Cohesion (2005-2007).
She was an MP for the Marne several times between 2002 and 2017, before being defeated by an elected official from the presidential party. Since 2014 she has been president of Grand Reims.
He also had dealings with the law. She was treasurer of the UMP (now LR) when the Bygmalion affair broke out in Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign accounts. However, she was acquitted in 2015 by dismissing the case. Graduated in business law, she worked in particular as marketing director at the American health insurance group Cigna.
Source: BFM TV
