With Emmanuel Macron, five years his senior, Gérald Darmanin embodies at 40 a new generation of French politicians even if he has slowly climbed the ladder of power, becoming mayor of the disadvantaged city of Tourcoing (North) at 31 and engaging very young with the former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Minister of Mr. Macron since 2017, first in Public Accounts before being promoted to the Interior in 2020, this divisive man, from a modest background, is credited with the greatest ambitions, including the presidential palace of Elysee.

In the meantime, Matignon, the official residence of prime ministers, would be a more affordable walk. Especially since the current holder of the post, Elisabeth Borne, emerges weakened from the pension reform, passed without a vote in the National Assembly despite months of consultations and demonstrations.

Gérald Darmanin, who officially denies being "a candidate for any other post", the "cheeks Prime Minister end of mandate" and "managed to have the confidence of parliamentarians, which was his weak point", analyzed, even before the pension crisis, a framework of the presidential majority.

For months, while hundreds of thousands of French people have been marching against this flagship - and unpopular - reform of Emmanuel Macron's second term, he regularly receives deputies to prepare a new immigration law, an inflammatory theme in France for decades, in a political landscape marked by the steady progression of the far right.

Mr. Darmanin meets in particular the parliamentarians of the right, his former political camp, who have long described him as "opportunist", after his rallying to Emmanuel Macron in 2017. An asset for him, as the right is the key to votes in the Assembly, where the government only has a relative majority.

Demonstration against the pension reform, March 28, 2023 in Strasbourg © Frederick FLORIN / AFP

"Gerald, he has passed the status of traitor" and is now "compatible" with his former political family, says a minister who supports him.

The person concerned gladly appears as the heir of "social Gaullism" - "firm on authority", "social on the economy" - in tribute to the major figure of the French right since the Second World War, the hero of the Resistance turned post-war president, Charles de Gaulle.

Divisive

Grandson of an Algerian rifleman, born in Valenciennes (North) of a father bar owner and a mother housekeeper at the Bank of France, Gérald Darmanin never misses the opportunity to recall his modest origins and his middle name, Moussa.

Reviled by the left, he was accused of rape for years but was dismissed in early 2023, a decision against which the complainant appealed to the Court of Cassation.

Since he holds the Interior, this key ministry in charge France of internal security, police / gendarmerie and cults, he multiplies the shock formulas: "Savagery" of society, drugs "it's", Marine Le Pen, the tenor of the extreme right, is "a little soft"...

He who works to pamper the police unions, all powerful in the profession, with dinners and to accede to many of their demands keeps this course in the storm.

To the criticism of the Council of Europe on an "excessive use of force" in France, he opposes the supposed "radicalisation" of "thugs" from the "extreme left" and praises the "formidable" work of the security forces to "avoid a death".

Since the beginning of the pension protests, however, numerous clashes between police and protesters have caused several serious injuries. One man was blinded and a protester had a finger torn off by grenades, according to the unions.

Mr. Darmanin prefers to counterattack by accusing the alliance of the left in the National Assembly of taking "the slope of this ultra-left of the 1970s" which planted bombs in Europe.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Gérald Darmanin at a meeting in Tourcoing in the North on January 29, 2015 © PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP/Archives

A new "outrage", according to the left which accuses Gérald Darmanin of being first "campaigning" to replace Elisabeth Borne at Matignon.

© 2023 AFP