Bordelis Thomas Cazeneuve stays, Pessacais Berengere leaves Couillard government

un months with the false air of Chinese torture. Will they be withdrawn or not? The question has dogged representative ministers and secretaries of state as they had to leave their offices, their telephones and their computers on January 11. This week the suspense became more unbearable. The announcement was originally supposed to come on Monday… and then the Barrow psychodrama happened, disrupting the planned schedule. The list was finally announced on Thursday, February 8. Only one Girondin will be left to sit in the government. Thomas Cazeneuve, not surprisingly, has been reappointed as Minister of Public Accounts. For Berengere Couillard, she did not pass the barrier. She was not reappointed and will regain her seat as Deputy of 7^E Constituency (Pasac and surrounding areas).

sacrifices

“Circular” returns to the Girondins after a long ministerial hiatus. Between July 2022 and July 2023, she was Secretary of State for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion Minister responsible for ecology. Before moving on to become Ministerial Representative in charge of equality between women and men and the fight against discrimination. Aurore Berg deleted the post just ten minutes before the announcement of the first car from Atal Sarkar.

A fortnight ago, during a welcome ceremony with her deputy Frederik Zaginsky, she explained: “The prime minister also assured me of his desire to continue our normal work in government. » This was not guaranteed. Especially for the constitution of this second list, sacrifices had to be made, against the background of the stalemate with the Renaissance partners. This is the case of Bérangère Couillard.

Risk budget

Thomas Cazeneuve was in a slightly different situation. During these interminable weeks, his phone never stopped ringing. He received assurances and most files to follow up with his supervisory minister, with whom he remained in touch. He will find Bersi which is similar to his biotope. His appointment last July allowed him to grow in a building he knows well. He was financial inspector there, then deputy director of Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet when he was economy minister. His experience as Inter-Ministerial Representative for State Reforms between 2017 and 2019 has made him a keen expert on government machinery and administration. A plus for ensuring this works.

If he was not the first choice of the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire – he chose Jean-Ren Cazeneuve, deputy of Gers -, with the captain of the column Bercy, for Emmanuel Macron in office since 2017, it was, and remains, someone loyal to manage the business. Guaranteed to be as technical as it is strategic. Bruno Le Maire and Thomas Cazeneuve agree on a road map: to forget the generosity of “whatever it takes” and to tighten the screws on public spending. Even before the crisis in the agricultural world, the figure was staggering: finding savings of 12 billion euros to meet the next budget. The bill could still get worse. It is up to the two of them to be responsible for the creation of the next budget, which has already been called “the most dangerous of V^E Republic “. As a result of this appointment, Alexandra Martin, his deputy in the first constituency (Bordeaux Nord, Bruges, Bousquet), who replaced him last July, will continue to sit in the National Assembly.

In this ministerial bonato, as with every reshuffle, the name of Florent Baudy, deputy of Libornais, also floated. At one point there was talk of assigning him a delegation or secretary of state for immigration attached to Home Affairs Minister Gerald Darmanin. Girondin, a deputy since 2012 who cut his teeth in the Socialist Party, specializes in “political” subjects in the presidential majority, never far from the interior minister. At the end of 2022, he was the rapporteur for the Ministry’s Orientation and Programming Law, then in 2021 for the “separatism” bill. He was also a reporter for the highly controversial immigration law passed last December. This writing probably led to the fiasco that lands him at the door of the government.