Officially much of France may have been on holiday, but this summer has been a busy time for government and public appointments as President Emmanuel Macron has made his powers of patronage felt across all levels of the Republic. The regular meeting of governement ministers held at the end of July approved a raft of appointments of prefects – state officials – as well as heads of various government services and departments whose nominations are in the gift of the head of state. No fewer than 62 such appointments were made public.
As a candidate Emmanuel Macron championed the idea of doing politics 'differently', sweeping away old customs and practices. Yet now firmly ensconced in office after his 2017 election, Macron is following in the tradition of his predecessors. As previous presidents have done, he has used the patronage of his office to recompense faithful supporters or to reward allies.
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For example, the prefect Stéphane Bouillon, who was chief of staff to ousted interior minister Christophe Castaner, has been given a major promotion, becoming secretary general of the Défense et de la Sécurité Nationale (SGDSN), the inter-ministerial body coordinating government response on defence and security issues. This is a position of major responsibility for Bouillon, who worked for Castener during the repression of the gilets jaunes or 'yellow vest' protest movement and the drafting of the new 'anti-rioter' law. A former prefect in Corsica, he was censored by an administrative court in Bastia in April 2017 for having waved through unlawful planning permission at Coti-Chiavari in the south-west of the French Mediterranean island.
Official Jean-Marie Girier, who worked at the Ministry of the Interior under a previous minister, Gérard Collomb, has also been promoted. Girier, who is currently chief of staff to the president of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, was a key figure behind Macron's election campaign in 2017. He will now be the prefect for the Territoire de Belfort département or county in eastern France, perhaps pending a role in the 2022 presidential election.
Other officials who worked for ministers removed in the July reshuffle have also been found new roles. Xavier Brunetière, the former overseas territories advisor to former prime minister Édouard Philippe, has been made a prefect for the south-west département of Gers while Pierre Regnault de la Mothe, the ex-premier's advisor on domestic security issues, will take on the role of a prefect with a “public service” mission working for the government.
Anne Clerc, who was the head of Philippe's private office, has been named a prefect with responsibility for equal opportunities in the Hauts-de-Seine département which borders Paris. Here, in a département which is historically controlled by the Right, she will work with the also newly-appointed prefect Laurent Hottiaux. Hottiaux is Emmanuel Macron's former security advisor who attended the elite École Nationale d'Administration (ENA) with Alexis Kohler, Macron's all-powerful chief of staff.
Another person who has left the Élysée and has now been rewarded with a new post is Macron's former deputy chief of staff Rodrigue Furcy, who will become prefect for the Hautes-Pyrénées département in south-west France. His former colleague Marie Fontanel, who was Macron's health advisor, has also been found a new role. She will become France's permanent representative at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. This is despite the fact that the former government health and social affairs inspector had quit the Élysée on January 31st 2020 just after the World Health Organisation had declared the new Coronavirus outbreak to be a “public health emergency of international concern”. Fontanel wanted to return to Strasbourg to be with her family and support her husband who was a candidate there – he was ultimately defeated – in the delayed local elections that were held in March and June 2020.
It would appear that leaving a front-line position at a time when a health emergency demands total commitment is not an obstacle to career advancement. The best example of this is Agnès Buzyn, who stood down as health minister on February 16th 2020 to become the ruling La République en Marche (LREM) party's candidate to be mayor of Paris in the local elections, a race in which she eventually came a distant third. She is now being lined up to be the new president of Universcience, a prestigious museum based in Paris which combines the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie and the Palais de la Découverte, and whose stated aim is to “promote the culture of science”.
So while Agnès Buzyn may not have become mayor, the government has handed her a job in the heart of the French capital. Another person who has fallen on their feet is Frédérique Calandra, the former mayor of the 20th arrondissement or district of Paris who was a member of the Socialist Party but who later joined the LREM. She did not even make it past the first round of this year's local elections. But now she has been named as the government's inter-ministerial representative in charge of victim support. Another vanquished election candidate, Karim Amellal, who was head of LREM's election list in the 10th arrondissement in Paris, has had the blow of his crushing defeat cushioned by his appointment as the government's inter-ministerial representative for the Mediterranean.
Then there is the case of François Bayrou, the president of the LREM's allies the centrist MoDem party. His case is the most striking example of how Macron has failed to live up to his claims that he would govern in a new and exemplary manner. Bayrou was justice minister briefly in 2017 before standing down after a preliminary criminal investigation was launched into allegations that his party misused European Parliament funds. Bayrou has since been placed under formal investigation in the case – one step short of charges being brought. Yet the veteran politician is set to be given the new post of High Commissioner in charge of forward thinking and planning for the French economy.
The French president cannot afford to do without his political ally, even if Bayrou is the target of a criminal investigation, at a time when the LREM has lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly after the defection of some Members of Parliament, and when MoDem support is now essential to guarantee a government majority. The recent promotion of Gérald Darmanin as interior minister, despite him being under investigation over allegations of rape, shows the extent to which political ethics are increasingly being discarded under this presidency.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter