Can Macron afford not to appoint a woman to Matignon?

• It's not really a promise but during the campaign Emmanuel Macron again indicated that he would like to appoint a woman Prime Minister.

• By reaffirming this will, can he afford to appoint a man again?

  Concretely yes, he can appoint whoever he wants.

• The argument of competence as a priority quality is put forward by macronists… “A fable” in the eyes of feminists, like Alice Coffin?

"Someone who is attached to the social question, the environmental question and the productive question": here is the robot portrait of the next Prime Minister drawn on Wednesday, by Emmanuel Macron, visiting Cergy (Val-d'Oise) .

Could it be a woman?

The president has “the wish of course for a female appointment to Matignon”, indicated the Secretary of State in charge of European Affairs, Clément Beaune.

Such an appointment would undoubtedly be an event.

The government of France has only been led by a woman once: Edith Cresson, a little less than a year between 1991 and 1992. Except that Emmanuel Macron has already done it.

“A female prime minister?

It is rather my wish, he said already in 2017 during his campaign.

But I'm not going to choose a prime minister because she's a woman.

I will choose the most competent Prime Minister with the wish that it will be a woman.

»

Once elected, it is Edouard Philippe whom he will appoint before replacing him in 2020 by Jean Castex: obviously, he has not found a competent woman for the position.

After having reaffirmed this desire to appoint a woman this year, can Emmanuel Macron really ignore this time?

"It is the president who has the power to appoint the prime minister, he will make the choice he deems necessary", replies very cautiously Olivier Becht, the president of the Agir group in the Assembly (the right wing of the majority ).

Basically, that still means that yes, it's the president who decides, and he decides what he wants.

"I'm afraid that there will be disappointed", even advances Catherine Osson, LREM deputy from the North.

“Competence is a fable”

And the justification for the possible appointment of a man has not changed compared to 2017: "I have never been in favor of appointing a woman to appoint a woman, proclaims the spokesperson for the presidential party, Maud Bregeon .

What should come first are skills.

Five years later, so there still isn't a competent woman for the job?

“Competence is a fable, indignantly elected and feminist and lesbian activist, Alice Coffin.

Or else it would really amount to saying that men are more competent than women since there are 23 male prime ministers out of 24 under the Fifth Republic.

So, in 96% of cases, men are, according to our Presidents of the Republic, more competent than women.

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The question is what is expected of a Prime Minister.

“I am for having a wife at Matignon, explains Catherine Osson.

But if it's to put a woman who isn't the warlord we need, then it's better to put a man.

“Warlord?

At this rate, Alice Coffin thinks that women will be “immediately eliminated”: “The expectations of powerful men towards other powerful men are masculine expectations.

The standards on which we built the idea, the essence of the ''prime minister'', are therefore masculine.

»

Borne, NKM, Lagarde…

Okay but then who?

A name has been coming up with insistence for several weeks: that of Elisabeth Borne, the current Minister of Labor.

During the five-year term she also worked in Transport and especially in the key position of Ecological Transition after the departure of François de Rugy, in 2019. The former president of the RATP, from the left, seems to tick all the boxes of the poatrait-robot designed by Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.

Elisabeth Borne seems to tick all the boxes.

It is, of course, not the most media of ministers.

But when we appointed Jean Castex, it is the criterion of media space is not decisive.

Last week,

echoed a rumor about Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.

The former UMP minister left politics in 2017, after being defeated in the legislative elections in Paris.

She has for her to have been at the maneuver during the Grenelle of the environment, launched by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. The former deputy of Longjumeau has long embodied a more centrist and greener wing on the right.

Also, as with each reshuffle or change of government, the Christine Lagarde hypothesis returns.

Business lawyer, Minister of the Economy, President of the IMF and now Governor of the European Central Bank: Christine Lagarde has a five-star CV.

Precisely, does she really have an interest in returning to Paris?

Especially since having succeeded in imposing a Frenchwoman in Frankfurt is to be credited to the European balance sheet of Emmanuel Macron.

A “really?

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The names of the Minister of the Armies, Florence Parly, but also of the former minister of Jacques Chirac, Catherine Vautrin, are also mentioned.

The LR president of Pays-de-la-Loire, Christelle Morançais, has been one of the contenders since she ostensibly reached out to Emmanuel Macron on the evening of the second round.

And why not something else?

Catherine Osson would see a woman who would come from the economic or associative world.

“I would love to have a surprise with a woman unknown to the general public, for everyone to say to each other ''ah good? '' and who is a hit!

“, dreams aloud the deputy of the North who, despite past disappointments on this subject, “trusts [his] President of the Republic”.

As a good manager of expectations, Maud Bregeon warns that the appointment of a woman to Matignon should not be made "a totem or a symbol" and invites us to see things more generally: "I do not forget that it It is also thanks to Emmanuel Macron that for the first time in 2017 the majority group was equal.

Certainly, but at the heart of power, around the president, it is almost exclusively men who gravitate.

And basically, it is still this "boys club" which will decide whether or not to appoint a woman to head the government.

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• Emmanuel Macron

• Prime Minister

• Parity

• Elisabeth Borne

• Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet

• Florence Parly