Under the Vmy In the Republic, no more than fifty ministers were senators when they were appointed to the government. So nine nominations in one go, that’s remarkable. In total, more than a quarter of the new team around Michel Barnier is attached to the Senate (10/39): something unprecedented by far. But the statistical unprecedented is only an indication of the political unprecedented: if Barnier’s government is in the minority in the National Assembly, it is in the Senate that it finds an absolute majority with 229 votes from the right and the centre with 348.
This landing marks the transition of the opposition senatorial majority to open support for Barnier’s half-right, half-Macronist executive. The first time since 2011, which translates into the presence of eminent personalities at the Luxembourg Palace such as Bruno Retailleau, leader of the 131 senators of Les Républicains (LR), recently appointed to the Ministry of the Interior. Also executives are François-Noël Buffet (LR, Rhône), a foreigner, president of the overseas laws committee, and the vice-president of the Senate, Sophie Primas (LR, Yvelines), of Commerce, close to Gérard Larcher.
Agnès Canayer (LR, Seine-Maritime), according to her family, was deputy mayor of Edouard Philippe, in Le Havre. Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée (LR, Paris), who led Barnier’s campaign during the LR primaries in 2021, is to coordinate the government. Laurence Garnier (LR, Loire-Atlantique), on consumption, was pushed by Bruno Retailleau. Among all these nuances of the senatorial right, there is a centrist: the senator of Ille-et-Vilaine Françoise Gatel (UDI), designated for rurality. When the Macronist senator of Mayotte Thani Mohamed Soilihi was elected for the Francophone world. The senator of Gironde, secretary general of the Radical Party, Nathalie Delattre, moved to the ministry of Parliamentary Relations, despite her weak network among the deputies.
A dance that started two years ago.
Behind the massive entry of senators into Barnier’s executive, some can easily imagine the hand of the LR President of the Senate. Gérard Larcher was the kingmaker, This is the view of Patrick Kanner, chairman of the Socialist Party (PS) group in the Senate. I cannot imagine for a moment that he did not have a say in who would enter the government. He wanted the Senate to be recognized.. »
Often mentioned among Emmanuel Macron’s potential prime ministers, the second in command of the state has been pushing for several months for his political family to impose on Matignon a prime minister and a right-wing policy. The President of the Republic’s refusal at the end of August to appoint Matignon’s New Popular Front candidate, Lucie Castets, offered him the last chance to convince his people of an alliance.
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