The three-piece suit has replaced the blouse.

And the minister is gradually taking precedence over the doctor.

“Not the minister who will deny the difficulties” of caregivers facing “with courage and self-sacrifice the trials that follow one another”, he assured Friday during a press conference with alarmist accents.

But still the minister who predicts that "in six months, things will be better".

Bold prognosis launched at the end of November by the one who, at the beginning of July, evoked a "breathless health system".

No time to breathe for Dr. Braun.

Appointed at the beginning of the summer to treat yet another bout of fever in the emergency room, the placid practitioner takes the accumulation of calamities without flinching: unprecedented monkeypox, record bronchiolitis, early flu, etc.

"There will be others, I have no illusions about that," he said at the dawn of a new wave of autumn Covid.

In addition to epidemics, computer viruses bring even the largest hospitals to their knees.

Thus, Corbeil-Essonnes and Versailles, two local headquarters of the Samu, sent back to the paper age by hackers eager for ransoms.

Visible face of the "daily attacks" that the minister deplores, affirming each time that "the health of the French will not be taken hostage".

"Convince and Trust"

Difficult to reassure a population already often worried about drug shortages, real or perceived but always more numerous.

While the fear of running out affects products as essential as paracetamol and amoxicillin, he can only promise a return to normal "in the weeks, the months to come".

As in the face of the revolt of overwhelmed pediatricians, whom a budget extension is supposed to calm until the Assizes of child health announced for the spring.

The crisis management of the first months erected in politics, for lack of time.

The person concerned denies this and wants to be "the minister of all treatment, not only of + damage control +", capable of carrying out "in parallel the emergency treatment" and "the basic treatment, the refoundation of our healthcare system.

But he knows he is at the head of a "ministry which has long been accustomed to moving from one crisis to another and which, in fact, has great difficulty in taking distance to solve the basic problems. ".

Not easy either to free oneself from Elysian supervision.

When the compulsory mask returns to the debate, the minister advances (“my arm will not tremble”) then the president reframes (“on a voluntary basis”).

And the first moderates: "My method is to convince and trust the French".

Taste of melee

A priority mission, judging by the progress of the health component of the National Council for Refoundation, launched well before those on education or "aging well".

It is no coincidence either that the former emergency doctor is overexposed in the media, while other recruits from "civil society" such as Pap Ndiaye (Education) or Jean-Christophe Combe (Solidarities) are rarer there.

The shadow of his predecessor Olivier Véran is never far away, however, with the news regularly providing the government spokesperson with the opportunity to recall that he held the post.

Less expert in communication, as in politics - "the inability to be able to really debate in the Assembly" surprised him -, François Braun compensates by surveying the field.

Wherever he goes, the former head of emergencies in Metz boasts of his "toolbox", made up of "rights and duties".

But the speech does not calm all the tensions.

His first Social Security budget provoked strikes by interns and biologists.

Liberal doctors followed suit, showing their anger at the foot of the ministry.

Unusual scene, François Braun went to meet them, even if it meant being heckled by his colleagues.

A taste of the scrum specific to the rugby fan, who "always preferred percussion to framing-overflow".

The pillar must now avoid the rumbles.

© 2022 AFP