In another existence, Antoine Armand would have wanted to be an artist. An actor. High school student and then student, the current Minister of Economy and Finance plays Anouilh, Sartre, Molière with his successive troops. He loves to compose great texts. “with three cents”. In The misanthropehe is Alceste: “I want us to be sincere, and as a man of honor/Let us not say a single word that does not come from the heart. » Tempted to make it his career, he tried to enter the free class at the Cours Florent, a large Parisian theater school. The singing test is fatal for him. “It was horrible! »laughs today. Instead, you will go through the best preparatory classes in France, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, the National School of Administration (ENA) and then the General Inspection of Finances…
Fifteen years later, he may be playing the role of a lifetime. That of the youngest Economy Minister in the history of France, at 33 years old (the previous record was held by Emmanuel Macron). The person responsible, together with his colleague Laurent Saint-Martin, for approving in an Assembly without a majority one of the most complicated budgets of the Vmy Republic, with an austerity plan accompanied by a sharp increase in taxes. Sacred first. Since Monday, October 7, Antoine Armand tried in Luxembourg to convince his eurozone counterparts of Paris’ budgetary seriousness. Difficult mission, after the continuous slippages of French finances.
His beginnings with the ministerial suit were painful. On September 21, a few minutes after his appointment, he was the first member of the government to grant an interview to the press to “reveal their first budget decisions”in this case to an ultra-conservative weekly, The Sunday newspaper. Two days later, Michel Barnier asks his ministers to “act before communicating”.
Three days later, however, Antoine Armand appears in the media again. In France Inter, he explains that he will not receive the National Rally (RN) in the framework of the preparation of the budget, because this movement, in his opinion, is outside of “the republican arch”. Marine Le Pen is furious and she makes it known. After an hour, Michel Barnier reformulates “clearly and firmly” his minister, and calls the president of the RN deputies to apologize. A few more minutes and Antoine Armand announces that he will finally receive all the parties, including the RN.
“A personality of the future”
“My door is open to everyone.”comment today at World. Although my beliefs have not changed. » To think that fifteen days before his appointment, then deputy (Renaissance) for Haute Savoy, declared, in Europe 1: “We met to defeat RN, it is not to propose a government that depends on your votes. »
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