Elisabeth Borne is in the hot seat and the hypothesis of her departure continues to cause ink to flow. Regarding the precise date on which the Prime Minister should leave Matignon, theories are going well.
Some suspected that the reshuffle would take place after the adoption of the pension reform. Now, it is another scenario that seems to appeal to a large part of the political aficionados. According to him, the 100 days of appeasement announced by Emmanuel Macron would actually be a kind of countdown before D-Day.
Thus, Elisabeth Borne could leave her seat vacant around July 14. By taking such a decision, the President of the Republic could try to breathe new life into his second term for the new parliamentary year to come. In addition, the month of July seems particularly dear to Emmanuel Macron when it comes to important changes.
However, a new hypothesis has made its way into the press in recent days. According to her, the Head of State could choose to wait until the end of the senatorial elections to appoint the new tenant of 57 rue de Varenne.
On September 24, 2023, half of the members of the Senate will take their place. Today, the Les Républicains group is in the majority with 145 seats, followed by the Socialist, Ecologist and Republican group with 64 seats, then the Centrist Union with 57 seats and the Rassemblement des democrates, progressives et Independants group, composed mainly of members of Renaissance, has 24 seats.
According to the forecasts established for the moment, the right should remain in the majority and Gérard Larcher should thus retain his status as President of the Senate. It is precisely this profile that seems to particularly interest Emmanuel Macron.
Since the failure of the 2022 legislative elections, Emmanuel Macron and his government have continued to seek a majority by trying, text by text, to find allies in the National Assembly. In the case of the pension reform, this strategy proved to be a failure since Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne had to draw article 49-3 of the Constitution to pass the text without the deputies being able to vote on it, fault of majority.
If LR’s support was at least variable in the Hemicycle, the latter proved to be at fault on the side of the Senate. Led by Gérard Larcher, the majority group was able to position itself unanimously in favor of pension reform. Today, the government seeks more than ever to get closer to the right-wing party in order to have a wider field of action thanks to an enlarged majority.
Highly respected within his party, Gérard Larcher could become a major ally for Emmanuel Macron. By appointing him Prime Minister, he could count more on the support of the Senate. Is Emmanuel Macron really thinking of putting this plan into action?
“If the President of the Republic offered me to be Prime Minister, I would refuse (…) I would clearly refuse. Being Prime Minister comes from a project that we share, from a contract that we have signed and therefore it is only possible before or after an election.” This is what Gérard Larcher said on May 7, 2023 on the set of the Grand Jury RTL-LCI-Le Figaro, putting an end to all theories.
However, behind the scenes there are whispers that the Senate President may actually be more interested in the job than he is letting on. “He now wants to exercise more important functions. And then, above all, he has never been Prime Minister, I do not see how he could refuse”, confides a source close to Gérard Larcher with Blast.
More than that, according to the words of a wise observer of political life, who confides in our colleagues, “the deal is very advanced between Larcher and Macron because the reality is that the only one who can go to Matignon, it is indeed Larcher. […] If Larcher goes there, it is at a special price and we are currently seeing people from civil society and senior civil servants rise around him, because they have understood that it is is in the pipeline and that there are places to be taken in cabinets and ministries. Éric Ciotti is very active behind the scenes.”
