Paris (AFP)

The high official Jean Castex, appointed Friday Prime Minister after having prepared the deconfinement, is a former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, both elected local and man with multiple networks recognized for his interpersonal skills and his efficiency.

This posed and affable man of 55, who kept the accent of his native Gers, commented on Friday his appointment saying "measure the immensity of the task" that awaits him in Matignon.

He ticks a certain number of boxes which will be used to carry the last phase of the quinquennium: enarque, but in contact with the territories (he is mayor of Prades in the Pyrénées-Orientales); right, but appreciated beyond his party; and a perfect connoisseur of the mysteries of power since his passage, as assistant secretary general, at the Elysée Palace at the end of Nicolas Sarkozy's mandate.

"A senior official who knows the world of health perfectly and who is formidable in efficiency," summed up his predecessor Edouard Philippe by appointing him in early April coordinator of the national post-coronavirus deconfinement strategy.

"He works at the speed of light while keeping a foolproof calm," reports a former ministerial minister of Xavier Bertrand, who praises his "good nature", his "empathy" and his "humility, and claims to have" never seen anyone so unanimously around him all the time. "

Little known to the general public until his post as "Mr. Deconfinement", Jean Castex, who has never been a parliamentarian or minister, was able to rely in this mission on a professional and political life largely oriented towards the social sector and health.

"He's a real Swiss army knife, he has connections everywhere, he knows how to do what needs to be done in the right place," reports Franck Louvrier, former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy.

- "Enarque rectified elected local" -

Director of hospitalization at the Ministry of Solidarity in 2005-2006, he then became director of cabinet for Xavier Bertrand twice, first at the Ministry of Health (2006-2007) and then at Work (2007-2008).

Rue de Grenelle, he also had to manage delicate files, including the minimum service in transport and the reform of special pension plans.

At the time, he left with his interlocutors from the trade union centers the memory of a man "available" and "pleasant" even if he "hides a certain firmness", with "an excellent knowledge of his files". In short, say the same, "someone we can talk to".

"Politically, I am on the right and I assume it perfectly", emphasized this member of the Court of Accounts.

Nicolas Sarkozy then made him his social affairs adviser in 2010, then the assistant general secretary of the Élysée Palace between 2011 and 2012.

"The day after will be right as the day before" lamented after his nomination for the boss of the PS Olivier Faure, while that of LR Christian Jacob criticized a shift "technocratic" more than political, and warned that Jean Castex no longer "de facto" belonged to the Republicans with his entry into government.

Two years before the presidential election, his appointment "has a lot of advantages for Macron" and "he says he can also annoy Xavier Bertrand" underlines one in the entourage of the ex-LR boss of Hauts- de-France, whose name comes up regularly to represent the right in 2022, and who does not hide appreciating "the clear ideas and outspokenness" of this "rectified enarch elected local".

For UDI boss Jean-Christophe Lagarde, the appointment of the little-known Jean Castex means above all that "The President wants to govern alone and directly to prepare the presidential election".

This father of four daughters born on June 25, 1965 in Vic-Fezensac had already seen his name circulating at the end of 2018 to succeed Gérard Collomb in the Interior.

Until the beginning of the year, he was an interministerial delegate to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and chaired the National Sports Agency.

Regional councilor of Languedoc-Roussillon from 2010 to 2015, defeated in the 2012 legislative elections by PS Ségolène Neuville, Jean Castex tore the small town of Prades to the left in 2008, before being widely re-elected in March (76%).

© 2020 AFP