🇫🇷Weekly Dispatch - Shuffle shuffle
11 February 2023 - Another government reshuffle, François Bayrou causes some drama, and Gabriel Attal unveils government plans
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This week
💁♀️Another government reshuffle
🎭François Bayrou causes some drama
🗞️Attal unveils government plans
💁♀️Another government reshuffle
What better to start the week than with yet another government reshuffle.
Your favourite newsletter covered the promotion of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra to the education ministry, adding the portfolio to her current position covering Sports and the Olympics.
However, she was then pretty much immediately targeted for having placed her children into a private school, and a month-long drama erupted over the stories she was saying, criticisms of how she was handling the criticisms, arguments over who had done what when and why, etc.
Basically, it was a mess.
And unfortunately, when you’re running a government that was formed to get away from old political dramas, you don’t really want to keep around more drama, which led to her getting the boot.
Which means, we now have a new government!
Ministers
Prime Minister - Gabriel Atalanta
Minister of Economy, Finances, and Industrial & Digital Sovereignty - Bruno Le Maire
Minister of the Interior and Overseas - Gérald Darmanin
Minister of Labour, Health and Solidarity - Catherine Vautrin
Minister of National Education and Youth - Nicole Belloubet
Minister of Sports and the Olympic & Paralympic Games - Amélie Oudéa-Castéra
Minister for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty - Marc Fesneau
Minister for Culture - Rachida Dati
Minister of the Armed Forces - Sébastien Lecornu
Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals - Eric Dupond-Moretti
Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs - Stéphane Séjourné
Minister for the Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion - Christophe Béchu
Minister for Transformation and Civil Service - Stanislaw Guerini
Minister of Higher Education and Research - Sylvia Retailleau
Deputy ministers
Minister for Democratic Renewal, Government Spokesperson - Prisca Thevenot
Minister for Relations with Parliament - Marie Lebec
Minister for Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities - Aurora Bergé
Ultimately, this remaniement was purely intended to overcome the issues that had arisen recently, to get out of the cycle of constant stories about Oudéa-Castera, and to just get the vehicle moving again.
With the European elections coming up in four months, the governing party and coalition couldn’t afford constant scandals that distracted efforts and energy away from both the day-to-day work and the campaigning necessary to catch-up to Le Pen’s party in the polls.
🎭François Bayrou causes some drama
Another thing that kicked off due to the formation of the first Attal government was how the president of the MoDEM party reacted to it, and helped contribute to this current remaniement.
Feeling slighted by the lack of ministers and secretaries of state that were appointed by his party, François Bayrou basically decided to go full throttle and tackle his government partners very publicly this Wednesday evening.
So, the juicy details: Bayrou that he had been offered the position of Education minister, and he criticised “the lack of deep agreement on the policy to follow”, adding to the crisis within the coalition.
This was then immediately criticised by members of his own party, who decried the fact that Bayrou had decided to create a profound disagreement with their allies, while ordering his deputies to continue supporting the work of the government without any internal consultation with his party.
Ultimately, while not the greatest thing someone can do, that’s somehow just how it is in politics, and it seems to have worked for him to some extent.
The result is that he has placed several of his politicians in key positions, such as:
Minister Delegate in charge of Children, Youth and Families - Sarah El Haïry
Minister Delegate in charge of Europe - Jean-Noël Barrot
Secretary of State for Digital Affairs - Marina Ferrari
While Bayrou got what he wanted, and maintained his presence within the government (four ministers), you could argue that, ultimately, this is still not a positive outcome for him.
For many, all this behaviour has shown is internal confusion, destructive self-interest, and an act that he has effectively just widened the cracks within the governing coalition.
And while there may not be any immediate retribution, the government will maintain a long memory of this action.
🗞️Attal unveils government plans
Moving on to the business of governing, Prime Minister Attal unveiled his plans for the upcoming year this weekend in an interview given to Le Parisien.
Stating that “there will be no downtime” in the coming months, he made several promises, most notably that “as of this spring, [the government] will resolve several emergencies” before launching a “summer of social progress” which will be followed by an “autumn of work.”
Aside from the efforts to resolve the agricultural crisis and to deal with the discontent of farmers across France, Attal also made several announcements that will pique the interest of citizens.
For example, a new anti-drug plan has been touted in order to deal with the problems that medium-sized towns are dealing with, as well as new measures on juvenile justice intended to adapt sanction to younger people, as a reaction to the riots from last summer.
There will also be efforts to set quotes for social housing in certain municipalities, which will be done through an amendment to the Solidarity and Urban Renewal law, to be presented before the summer.
There will also be measures to block young people under the age of 13 from accessing social networks, through the use of a ‘real digital lock.’
However, this wasn’t the biggest piece of news that was shared last night, with the biggest being the announcement that there would be a ‘Macron II’ law being proposed for the start of the school year.
The goal of this is to continue the work that has been done to date by the government and to “free economic activity, growth, and industrial development.”
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Thanks for your blog as usual. What are your predictions or thoughts about En Marche? I mean for example, can EM and Macron present a new storytelling about what they want to do towards 2030s?