Xavier Bertrand cultivates his fragile status as near favourite for Matignon

The standoff over the Prime Minister’s chair continues. While Emmanuel Macron has chosen to postpone his decision to appoint the head of government until after the Olympic Games, one name has been circulating insistently for several days: that of Xavier Bertrand.

Almost silent since the legislative elections, the LR president of Hauts-de-France lets his close associates speak to support his candidacy for Matignon and put forward his “social right” profile cultivated for more than twenty years, according to him at the barycenter of a new Assembly nevertheless deemed ungovernable.

A former minister of Chirac and Sarkozy

On July 9, two days after the second round of the legislative elections, Xavier Bertrand called for “a national emergency government, with Les Républicains, the independents, Mr. Macron’s camp and perhaps also men and women of good will who clearly want our country not to be paralyzed in the Assembly.” To lead this team, his own candidacy had to prevail.

If since this outing, the former minister of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy has avoided the microphones, his entourage speaks in his place. “He is ready to take up the challenge, he is prepared,” assured one of his close associates, quoted Tuesday by the Figaro Magazineechoing a concert of praise that began at the end of July.

“He has a very good profile in the context,” praised the former leader of the right, Jean-François Copé, while the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, sees in him a “politician with very great competence”, who “can greatly serve France”. The resigning minister, Aurore Bergé – formerly a Sarkozy supporter – again cited him on Sunday as a possible “new Prime Minister” who knows how to “build compromises”.

At the same time, Xavier Bertrand appeared on a terrace popular with political elites in Paris with Bertrand Pancher, a former MP whose influence is reputed to be intact among the parliamentarians of the independent Liot group, a way of showing his ability to bring together “goodwill” in an attempt to build a majority, even if it is relative.

A sometimes confusing strategy

An appointment to Matignon would consecrate the singular career of Xavier Bertrand, an insurance agent in a sub-prefecture of Aisne, Saint-Quentin, who has climbed the ladder one by one. The former mayor of this city hard hit by industrial decline has also distinguished himself by his political positioning, self-proclaimed herald of a “social right” cultivated by his experiences in the ministries of Health and Labor.

But the strategy of the man who will celebrate his 60th birthday in March has also sometimes been confusing, to the point of appearing marginalized. After the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, he projected himself as the first opponent of this new power, without really managing to assert himself. Six months later, he slammed the door on his party when Republican activists elected Laurent Wauquiez, whom he criticized for right-wing positions. But four years later he agreed to take up his card again to compete in the right-wing primary for the 2022 presidential election… in which he finished fourth.

Castets’ big tackle

A supporter of the “no” vote to the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, then in favour of the European Constitution submitted to a referendum in 2005, Xavier Bertrand ardently fought against marriage for all in 2013. He now sums up his philosophy with a double injunction: “More security, less immigration”, while advocating a reduction in production taxes.

His status as near favourite for Matignon could, however, paradoxically reduce his chances, according to the Macronian tradition of “always surprising” when it comes to choosing the Prime Minister. The political equation of the new Assembly also seems difficult to resolve. His nomination would be an “aberration” given the weight of his party in the Assembly (47 deputies out of 577), the candidate of the New Popular Front for Matignon, Lucie Castets, has already lashed out in the daily South WestIn Paris, white smoke is still far from floating above 57 rue de Varenne.

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