INTERVIEW
"He may have been appointed in part because he is not known and not being known, he will not overshadow the president": the observation is from Raymond Soubie, former social advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée and guest of Europe 1, Saturday. The president of the consulting firm Alixio knew the new Prime Minister Jean Castex well, who had replaced him at the Élysée Palace in 2010. Little known to the general public, Jean Castex, 55, previously mayor of Prades in the Pyrenees -Orientales and responsible for deconfinement by the executive, was also an interministerial delegate in charge of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.
Stay in the shade
"I remind you that the president had another choice: to appoint someone known, who would have marked an inclination towards ecological policy, the left. The president did not do it because he did not want too much light to side of him. He didn't do it because he didn't think it was the right sign, "said Raymond Soubie.
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"Go to the front"
The former social adviser of Nicolas Sarkozy considers that the appointment of Jean Castex will also be useful for carrying out reforms, in particular that of pensions, because he is "a man of dialogue", and a "specialist" who "knows very well health subjects, knows job subjects very well, knows social partners very well ". According to him, Jean Castex "corresponds well" to what Emmanuel Macron was looking for, namely someone "able to face up to difficult situations, able to try to engage professional and union organizations in negotiations that will not be easy. "
Read also : Why did Emmanuel Macron choose Jean Castex for Matignon?
"I think he was appointed to go to the front. It is not for the President of the Republic to go to the front. It is for the President of the Republic to define the orientations, to take the major arbitrations, the major decisions, "said Raymond Soubie, on the contrary of the Prime Minister who is" somewhere a chief of staff in a war which is an economic war and a social movement which is nevertheless quite difficult ".
The "territory" man
Raymond Soubie, who knew him, also assures that the new Prime Minister "is not a technocrat in the classical sense of the word, that is to say the person who is locked in his technique, in the State and who does not know anything around ", but on the contrary he is indeed" the man of the territories "such as this last describes himself. "He has a lot of experience and he is very human. He has always listened to others. Ask the people of his region who adore him and who reelected him triumphantly in the first round of the municipal elections!"
Jean Castex being also enarque and elected, Raymond Soubie thinks that he will be able to do it concerning "the distribution of competences between what must the central State, the deconcentrated State and the decentralized territorial collectivities", because he know well. The former adviser of the Elysée also recommends to the new master of Matignon to "keep his cool", to "remember every day that he is there for two years, that it is not very long, that he will be judged on his actions and their results ", and that he must therefore" act, do what he feels, what he thinks and not be told. "