The nickname long attached to Edouard Philippe, "the unknown of Matignon", could just as well suit him. Jean Castex was chosen Friday by Emmanuel Macron to succeed Le Havres as Prime Minister. Accustomed to power but largely unknown to the general public, this Pyrenean sailed in various ministries under the right, and was in particular the adviser of Nicolas Sarkozy and the deputy secretary general of the Élysée at the end of his presidency. At the beginning of April, Edouard Philippe had charged him with coordinating the work of the government on the deconfinement of the French.
Expert in the world of health, Jean Castex has long been cabinet director of Xavier Bertrand, in the ministries occupied by him under Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2010, he joined the presidential circle to replace Raymond Soubie as social adviser to the Head of State. He was appointed the following year deputy secretary general of the Elysée.
During the fratricidal war of 2012 for the presidency of the UMP, Jean Castex supports François Fillon. Mayor of Prades since 2008, he was re-elected in the first round on March 15, with 76% of the vote.
The government's "Swiss army knife"
From the start of Emmanuel Macron's five-year term, and despite his membership of the Republicans, Jean Castex established himself as one of the government's "sports mister". In September 2017, he was appointed interministerial delegate for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, before becoming an interministerial delegate for major sporting events. Since last year, he has been the president of the brand new National Sports Agency.
Faced with the health crisis triggered by the new coronavirus, his good knowledge of the medical community and the social sector led him to be chosen on April 2 by Edouard Philippe as coordinator of the inter-ministerial working group on deconfinement strategies. It is then their responsibility to draw up a plan for each scenario. Franck Louvrier, also a former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, defined it with RTL as "a real Swiss knife".
The arrival of Jean Castex at Matignon owes nothing to chance. His work on the reform of special regimes, when Xavier Bertrand was Minister of Labor, will most certainly be one of his main assets, since Emmanuel Macron, in an interview with the regional daily press on Thursday, has just put it on the table the thorny issue of pension reform.