ANALYSIS
Rarely Emmanuel Macron will have left so much to express his anger. Thursday afternoon, after the rejection of the candidacy of Sylvie Goulard to the European Commission, the French president firmly spoke of "resentment" and "pettiness" on the part of MEPs. He also demanded explanations, whereas in his opinion he had proposed three names, and that it was Sylvie Goulard's which had been accepted both by the President of the European Commission, but also by the presidents of the political groups. in Parliament. The reaction of the French president did not go unnoticed in Brussels, and it was not really welcomed.
Moreover, from the evening of Thursday, the reactions were freezing. In series, the political groups have denied the statements of Emmanuel Macron, and denied having given their agreement upstream to the candidacy of Sylvie Goulard. Between the Parliament of Strasbourg and the tenant of the Elysée, it's actually open war for a few weeks.
"They do not understand anything, they go out of their way"
The big political families, both left and right, did not digest the blow of the month of July, when the French president unsheathed the German Ursula von der Leyen to head the European Commission. They believe that this choice was theirs, and they had selected their candidates. The affair left them with a bitter taste.
And then there is the clumsiness, the arrogance some say, of the On the Move delegation. It does not respect the codes of European parliamentary life. For example, 10 days ago, the Macronists boasted that they had dropped the Hungarian candidate for a conflict of interest. Each political family had a vulnerable candidate and "we all stood by the goatee," decrypts a right-wing elected. "But they do not understand anything, they are slaughtering everything." In turn, Sylvie Goulard has paid the price.