ON DECRYPT
After the business and the controversy, the hour of the return rang for François de Rugy. The former Minister for the Ecological Transition, who had resigned from the government, weakened by the revelations of Mediapart, especially about his sumptuous dinners at the Hotel de Lassay, will find his seat on Saturday for deputy of Loire-Atlantique. But what role can this former heavyweight executive now play in the majority?
From the perch at Place 634, on the far left of the hemicycle, with no ministerial morocco or official accommodation, François de Rugy finds himself at the heart of a plethoric majority of more than 300 deputies. But he will not become an average member, says a close, who has however warned: the return on the ground will be complicated. "People are waiting for explanations," he observes.
François de Rugy "weighs nothing politically", according to a group executive
On the bottom, François de Rugy, currently on vacation, intends to continue to advance the ecology and be useful. But how, asks a former collaborator? "At the local level, in an association or the government?" Emmanuel Macron and Édouard Philippe could they bring back their former minister? Neither the Élysée nor Matignon wish to comment. But in the majority, some consider the idea far from illogical. "After all, it has been whitened," says a walker. One part of the group is a lot less tender: "His explanations on his dinners were messy, let him come back, it is neither opportune nor desirable". And above all, he adds, François de Rugy "weighs nothing politically".