The current government spokesperson Olivier Véran has found himself at the heart of many controversies in the context of his political activity. His appearances in newspaper headlines and on television began almost 3 years ago now, in a very abrupt way. Indeed, he suddenly became Minister of Health on February 16, 2020: Agnès Buzin, then occupying the position, must replace Benjamin Griveaux as part of the municipal elections in Paris. Olivier Véran therefore becomes Minister of Health about a week before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in France, as reported by our colleagues from Ouest-France.
It is moreover the pandemic which will monopolize almost all of his attention throughout his mandate as Minister of Health, which he regrets bitterly: “I was the minister of the health crisis during two years, I would now like to be full-time Minister of Health”, he testified to the Obs. However, after Emmanuel Macron’s re-election, he was given the position of responsible for relations with Parliament, which he only held for a few weeks. Indeed, under the second Borne government, he will take up his current duties as government spokesperson.
Olivier Véran has indeed seen himself set aside, in particular by Emmanuel Macron following his re-election. The cause ? He would be too associated with the pandemic in the minds of the French, and the executive wanted new blood at the Health post. He indeed chained the scandals during the health crisis: that of the masks or even the doses of vaccine which were slow to arrive. The McKinsey affair was only the icing on the cake, therefore.
But even in his current role as government spokesman, Olivier Véran manages to degrade his own image in the eyes of the French: his guilt of the strikers over the climate crisis and the drought is only one example among many. These days in an unstable government, he may well lose his place altogether. Originally, he was a neurologist at the Grenoble University Hospital, before joining the Assembly in 2012.
