Paris (AFP)

After a fast-paced month of July during which he stepped up in the field to invest his position as Prime Minister, Jean Castex will only partially lift his foot in August before a decisive comeback.

Without time to adapt, Mr. Castex's teams, formed over the past few weeks, have been embarked on the drum of the Matignon machine, a house often described as "hell" for its propensity to embrace in a frantic pace a multitude of subjects.

Since his appointment on July 3, the new Prime Minister has added his personal touch, namely a taste for visits, from a police station to an apprenticeship training center, from an EHPAD to a rail freight site, to according to current events and current issues.

"I can not realize what happens if I do not move," pleaded Thursday evening Mr. Castex leaving an emergency shelter for women and children victims of domestic violence, in Paris suburbs.

"The leader must set an example. You have to go out and meet people, you have to know how to listen and in the role that is mine draw all the consequences," he insisted.

His entourage corroborates, pointing to the big dozen trips already made: "he intends to travel through France".

"And it is valid for him as for the members of the government, to whom he reminded the necessity of being deployed on the ground", one still supports the same source.

A style in line with the DNA of this high-ranking official who, recall his relatives, after the ENA got his hands on in the territories between the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s: in the direction of social affairs du Var, at the prefecture of Vaucluse where he will meet a young intern, future right-hand man of Emmanuel Macron, Alexis Kohler, then at the Regional Chamber of Accounts of Alsace.

But it is also a strategy for this stranger to the general public, suddenly thrown into the light but by nature rather resistant to communication.

"I find that he has taken the clothes we wanted to put on him pretty well, that is to say + the territories, the concrete. + He needed to be dissonant with the outgoing Prime Minister and this is rather successful ", analyzes a minister.

- "Permanent standby state" -

Consequence: his confidence rating is rather high (56%) according to a Harris Interactive barometer published on Thursday.

"Without speaking of enthusiasm with regard to Jean Castex, let us observe a benefit of the doubt from the French", decrypts the pollster Jean-Daniel Lévy noting "the anchoring on the right" of this former LR who was fully invested in the sovereign domain since his arrival, in particular on security themes.

Benevolence towards Jean Castex also benefits the Head of State, whose rating is rising sharply: with 50% positive opinions, he returned to his level of March (51%), at the very start of the Covid-19 in France.

In August, just Mr. Castex should he "slow down ten days", according to his entourage, while continuing to schedule trips.

At the same time, the ministers were ordered to remain in a "permanent state of watch", "mobilized to return to Paris if necessary", knowing that defense councils related to the epidemic situation could be held, according to the spokesperson. word of the government Gabriel Attal.

Because the pile of files is not getting thinner and the very substantial government team (43 members) will have to be operational from the start of the Council of Ministers on August 25, which will be followed by a seminar on September 2.

On the menu, among others: the start of the school year and university, complicated by the evolution of the epidemic; the economic recovery plan, a mock-up of which is expected at the end of August and for which a major meeting of ministers was held in Matignon on Thursday; the continuation of consultations with the social partners, in particular on the dependency worksite or the drafting of the bill following the proposals of the Citizens' Convention on the climate.

© 2020 AFP