Expected in the wake of Bastille Day, the reshuffle of the French government was announced in the afternoon of July 20th, a few days after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne was confirmed in her post by President Emmanuel Macron. Rather than a real reshuffle, these are adjustments that do not indicate any major change in the government’s line.
The cabinet reshuffle comes at the end of the 100-day period announced by the president of the republic to set a new course for his political action following the pension reform passed in April.
However, destabilised by the sequence of riots following the death of young Nahel shot by a policeman, Emmanuel Macron was very reluctant to carry it out. Élisabeth Borne would have liked to see a more substantial rearrangement of her teams, so as to send a clear signal to the public that she was taking charge of the country. But, according to a source close to the president, “Emmanuel Macron wants to keep his cards close to his chest,” an interview in Le Figaro reported. The strategy may prove wise, particularly in the event of a political reopening that promises to be stormy in September.
Indeed, President Macron is anticipating a possible new sequence of motions of censure, this time launched by the centre-right Les Républicains party on the budget or immigration bills, and which would be likely to appeal to both the left-wing NUPES coalition and the Rassemblement National. From this perspective, the summer reshuffle is anecdotal.
The two most notable changes within the government are the departure of two formerly media-friendly but now highly unpopular figures: National Education Minister Pap Ndiaye, and Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy Marlène Schiappa.
Since taking up his post, Minister Pap Ndiaye has done nothing but arouse hostility against him, on both the Right and the Left. On the Right, he has been criticised for his ideological obsessions in the service of wokeism; the Left has criticised his blatant failure to improve teachers’ working conditions despite his promises.
In the reshuffle, he was replaced by Gabriel Attal, who left the ministry of public accounts for one of the most difficult portfolios in the French government. The ministry of education is the employer of one in five public sector jobs in France—1.2 million civil servants—and has a reputation for being unreformable. Ironically, the future of France’s public education has once again been entrusted to a person who has no experiential knowledge of it: Attal spent his entire school career at a very posh private school in Paris, the École Alsacienne—precisely where the children of the previous minister, Pap Ndiaye, were educated. This detail is unlikely to win him the good graces of the teaching profession.
Controversial figure Marlène Schiappa is also leaving the government, after making headlines by posing on the cover of the glamour magazine Playboy—an initiative highly disapproved of by Élisabeth Borne. She is now embroiled in an embezzlement scandal.
Minister for Health François Braun, who came from civil society, is also packing his bags. His post-COVID management failed to convince public opinion, and he was unable to propose any credible measures to tackle the crisis in French hospitals, which are mired in financial mismanagement and a critical shortage of staff. Hostile to euthanasia, he has been replaced by a new profile, Aurélien Rousseau, who is very much in favour of it.
Aurore Bergé, the leader of the Renaissance group of MPs in the National Assembly, is finally joining the government, albeit in a secondary position as minister for solidarity. She replaces Jean-Christophe Combe, who, like Braun, was hostile to euthanasia and has been dismissed. Bergé’s departure from the Assembly suggests that there will be a fierce battle to succeed her.
The new government’s first meeting of the Council of Ministers is scheduled for Friday, July 21st, at 10 a.m.
