The president of the Les Républicains (LR) party, Eric Ciotti unveiled, in the Sunday newspaper May 14A “counter-government” alternative to Emmanuel Macron to defend the ideas of the party and build a programmatic project. “I hope that the programmatic work will be organized around the person who will have been in charge of the theme”explained Mr. Ciotti.
Under the leadership of LR’s general secretary, Annie Genevard, this team of around thirty “national secretaries” is also part of the effort to rebuild the right-wing party, both weakened by its electoral setbacks and having become pivotal thanks to its sixty or so deputies who can provide support to the majority.
Two months after the end of the psychodrama of pensions, the “shadow cabinet” mixes all the tendencies of LR. But the leader of the slingers, Aurélien Pradié, sacked from his position as number two, does not appear there.
The sovereign pole includes the vice-president of the Ile-de-France region Frédéric Péchenard (interior), the MEP Nadine Morano (immigration), and the senator François-Noël Buffet (justice). At the economic pole we find the expert Christian Saint-Etienne (economy and reindustrialization), as well as the deputies Véronique Louwagie (public accounts), Valérie Bazin-Malgras (companies) and Isabelle Périgault (training).
A quasi-equal cabinet
LR’s young guard is also represented with MPs Julien Dive (agriculture), Antoine Vermorel-Marques (environment) and Raphaël Schellenberger (energy).
In this almost equal counter-cabinet (15 women, 17 men), women’s rights go to the councilor of Paris, Nelly Garnier, and culture to the mayor of Taverny, Florence Portelli. Deputy Philippe Juvin is responsible for health, and Senator Max Brisson for education. Finally, questions relating to foreign affairs are monitored by Michel Barnier as special adviser to the president.
The “shadow cabinet” is a highly institutionalized tradition in Anglo-Saxon countries, where each person in charge of a dossier is a potential future minister. The mission of his shadow ministers is to monitor and criticize, if necessary, his equivalent in power. In France, the appointment of such a cabinet by opposition parties is rare, but not unprecedented.
Then president of LR, Laurent Wauquiez also had a “shadow cabinet” in November 2018, where Eric Ciotti was in charge of the interior. The president of the RPR (ancestor of LR) Michèle Alliot-Marie had also appointed in 2000 an alternative cabinet to the government of the plural left of Lionel Jospin.