With Jean Castex in Matignon and Gérald Darmanin Minister of the Interior, Emmanuel Macron seeks to cut the grass under the foot of Xavier Bertrand, one of his possible rivals for the next presidential election?
Emmanuel Macron, at the political revival, seeks a second wind on the right for the last part of his five-year term. In key positions in his government, that is to say in Matignon and the Interior, he placed two social Gaullists: Jean Castex and Gérald Darmanin. The two men have another common point: they are two close to Xavier Bertrand, a potential rival of Emmanuel Macron for the presidential election.
Xavier Bertrand is the president's obsession. For the Head of State, the boss of the Hauts-de-France region is the most annoying opponent on the right for 2022. A strategy that makes Xavier Bertrand smile himself, who jokes in private: "S ' he thinks he's stuck in me by naming Castex and Darmanin, two friends, the string is a little big ".
And his answer is ready. For him, no question of making the wrong fight. If Xavier Bertrand is delighted with the promotion of his former chief of staff Jean Castex and that of his foal Gérald Darmanin, he does not fight them either. Emmanuel Macron remains his target and no one else.
Hence the regular and assumed arms passes between the president of Hauts-de-France and Emmanuel Macron, as a few weeks ago when the president removed Xavier Bertrand from the list of guests during the visit of an equipment manufacturer automobile in Pas-de-Calais.
With Castex and Darmanin, Macron does not lose the north. He knows that the socialist and ecological electorate has left him, so he will seek to siphon the voices of the center-right. Its only option is no longer to overcome cleavages but to erase them at the same time.