Musical Chairs: life at the top for France’s Nomenklatura
France has often been characterised as a somewhat more benign, western version of the old Soviet Union. The president, like his Soviet counterpart, sits at the centre of a web of intrigue. His authority places him far above all other political leaders.
The prime minister – currently Elisabeth Borne – takes instructions from Emmanuel Macron much as Alexei Kosygin, as chairman of both the Soviet Council of Ministers and the Committee on the Operational Management of the Economy, followed the orders of Leonid Brezhnev throughout the 1960s and ’70s.
Mere ministers, with two exceptions, are apparachiks. They rarely become household names unless they are enmeshed in scandal, which, of course, happens from time to time. Last week, Macron carried out a practise reshuffle of his government in advance of an anticipated Day of the Long Knives that is expected to take place in the autumn.
There were only two cabinet-level changes. The first saw the keen but callow historian Pap Ndiaye replaced as education minister by the 34-year-old one-time government spokesman Gabriel Attal, previously a member of the Socialist Party, now a confirmed Macronist. The second resulted in Aurélien Rousseau, a past adviser to two Socialist premiers, Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve, as well as to Elisabeth Borne, taking over as health minister from François Braun, a leading physician specialising in medical emergiences.
Ndiaye, who is half Senegalese, is a respected academic, formerly a professor at Sciences Po (Cambridge to the Oxford of La Sorbonne), best known for his research into racism in France and America. It might be supposed that such a choice would be well-suited to the task of levelling up education at a time when thousands of young people of black and North African descent have been locked in combat with the police, having accused the state of abandoning their interests. Sadly for Ndiaye, the President was no longer convinced. What was actually needed, it turned out, was someone who knew everybody worth knowing across the political spectrum and was skilled in horse-trading. So it was out with Ndiaye and in with Attal.
In the same way, the fall from favour of François Braun – appointed to the health portfolio only last June – can be explained by the President’s need to surround himself with people he can depend on to follow the true path. Braun, a brilliant and idealistic doctor, spent years campaigning for health sector reform. His successor, Aurélien Rousseau, is a former geography teacher, later a civil servant, most recently chief of staff to the prime minister. His long-time partner, Marguerite Cazeneuve, is both a key member of the President’s inner circle, advising him on health and pension reform, and the daughter of a leading Macronist MP, previously CEO of the Apple Corporation in France, central Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The cabinet changes did not exactly make headline news and are unlikely to shift the public view that Macron’s progress as President is not unlike walking up a downside escalator. Very few citizens would have been able to name any of the principles in this big-city yet small-town political drama. The only individuals most could put a face to would be the interior minister Gérald Darmanin, a right-winger charged by Macron with restoring order in the streets, no matter what, and Bruno Le Maire, the left-of-centre finance minister, who has kept the economy successfully afloat, if taking on water, for all of the last six turbulent years.
Catherine Colonna, the foreign minister, was probably better known in the UK than France at the time of her appointment, having served as ambassador to London during the Brexit years when she made regular appearances on Radio 4’s Today Programme. Macron is effectively his own foreign minister, but no doubt relies on Colonna’s professionalism as he sets out each time to save Europe/Africa/the world. Of the remaining ministers – 16 in all, compared to 32 in the UK – the only names that spring to mind are Éric Dupond-Moretti, the justice minister, and Sébastien Lecornu, minister for the armed forces.
Dupond-Moretti is the only out and out maverick in the Cabinet. A theatrically endowed 62-year-old, he is a renowned criminal defence lawyer, dubbed l’Acquittator – a fusion of Acquitter and Matador – for his remarkable ability to secure courtroom victories for his clients. In 2019, his last full year at the bar before joining the Government, he won 145 not-guilty verdicts for those lucky enough to secure his services. His task today is to ensure equal justice for all, which frequently puts him at loggerheads with the police and the far right.
“I am a free man,” he wrote in a memoir published in 2018. “I am proud of being a lawyer, of rejecting the Legion d’honneur and the Freemasonry, proud of saying whatever I want to say.”
Not many of France’s nomenklatura could say the same. The norm is to accept any baubles offered and to look to a lucrative post-political career that takes into account their lofty rank as tribunes of the people.
By contrast with Dupond-Moretti, Lecornu, now in charge of Europe’s largest armed forces, rose seamlessly from small town mayor, by way of the departmental council of Eure, to a succession of backroom jobs in government, notably as adviser to the disgraced former prime minister François Fillon. Lecornu was thrown out of the centre-right Republican Party after he defected to Macron’s En Marche movement in 2017. He was rewarded with a series of middle-ranking ministerial jobs and then, last May, aged 36, moved to the Hôtel de Brienne, official headquarters of the defence ministry, from which, in troubled times, he oversees an annual budget of forty-five billion euros.
Lecornu’s direct military experience is confined to the operational reserve of the Gendarmerie Nationale, of which, having up to that point been a lieutenant, he was made a colonel upon joining the government.
Nominally presiding over all of this, Elisabeth Borne has been a beacon of stability. A no-nonsense middle-of-the roader, with a strong work ethic, she qualified as a civil engineer, but joined the élite civil service, rising to be prefect of the department of Vienne, where she came to the attention of Ségolène Royal (at the time the partner of François Hollande) who ran the associated region of Poitou-Charente. A political career ensued, both with Hollande and Macron, culminating in her appointment as prime minister two days after the latter’s re-election as President in May of last year.
It is said that the former banker respects Borne and regards her as a safe pair of hands. As recently as last week, he publicly backed her as his chosen confidante, responsible for the latest iteration of his Soviet-style five-year plan. But like all French (and Russian) presidents, Macron periodically needs someone who is not him to pay the price of failure, and his affirmation of Borne was inevitably seen by many as a Judas kiss. As he works to refine his legacy over the remaining four years of his presidential term, opening the way to what he must hope will be an exciting, and suitably remunerated, third career, it could well be that Borne’s usefulness will come to a sudden end. If so, it is unlikely that she will bear any lasting ill-will. Ironically, Borne could be one of the last of her generation to retire at 62, not 64.
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