The banns were published but we did not yet know the date. It will be Saturday and it will be a ceremony under close surveillance, specifies The voice of the North. Gérald Darmanin, 37, is due to marry his partner Rose-Marie in the Lille region. The Minister of the Interior and his wife should then, according to the daily, take the direction of Boulogne-sur-Mer to celebrate their wedding. Members of the family of the bride-to-be – a 33-year-old Northerner, currently consulting director at Havas Paris – own a house there. “The direct neighbors have also received a note in their letterbox: the family concerned apologizes in advance” for the inconvenience “this Saturday“, write our colleagues. The police will be mobilized for the occasion in the street where the reception is scheduled.
It is also this Saturday that Gérald Darmanin will no longer be mayor of Tourcoing. “Being Minister of the Interior is to be a full-time minister. But my heart remains in Tourcoing: I am still elected from our city and I will become mayor again as soon as my national mission is over. #Tourcoing”, wrote on Twitter the minister who will resign after the celebration of his marriage in second marriage in town hall, specified his entourage.
From the field and tweets Gérald Darmanin: portrait of a hyperactive minister in search of results
- All-round movements, bursts of tweets, martial vocabulary … Gérald Darmanin is constantly “on the ball”, recalling his ex-mentor Nicolas Sarkozy. A sign of his reactivity according to his relatives when his detractors already denounce a speech only incantatory.
An elected official attacked: tweet from the Minister of the Interior. Police officers ask women to put the top of their swimsuits back on, new tweet. He is getting married this weekend and will resign from the town hall of Tourcoing: a tweet to recall his attachment to his city. The death of a bus driver: a tweet… Each trip, whatever its importance, is accompanied by a post, at the risk of erasing the hierarchy of events.
“Mechanical rabbit”, asserts a detractor on condition of anonymity. “He is reactive. His task is complicated, he must restore confidence in authority”, answer his supporters. “There is a rule in law also valid in communication: “in fact of furniture, possession is worth title”, summarizes Franck Louvrier, who has long directed the communication of Nicolas Sarkozy, at the Interior and at the Elysee. Clearly, we have to saturate the media space, which Gérald Darmanin is working to do.
Since taking office at the beginning of July, he has more than thirty trips to his credit.
Nothing to compare him to Nicolas Sarkozy, annoy the faithful of the former head of state like Brice Hortefeux. “To reduce Nicolas Sarkozy’s method to the fact of constantly moving around is nonsense. All the interior ministers have done so “, says the man who ran Place Beauvau from 2009 to 2011. “Darmanin does not do Sarkozy or Valls, he does Darmanin. He is a local elected official. He goes into the field, as close as possible to reality to provide solutions”, replied the entourage of the former Minister of Public Accounts.
His relatives explain that he wants “put words on things”. Hence the term “wildly” reminiscent of that of “wildlings“by Jean-Pierre Chevènement, nearly twenty years ago. Or that of “thugs”, when Nicolas Sarkozy was talking about “scum” in 2005 in Argenteuil.
“Omnipresence is not enough”
For Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, communication specialist (MCBG Conseil), he wants “to revive the tradition of the young ambitious which increases its visibility”. “Like Charles Pasqua, Darmanin has casseroles, takes them without qualms”, he continues with reference to the investigation reopened in June on a rape complaint against the minister.
Since his appointment, he has had to face demonstrations by feminists, calling him “rapist” and calling for his resignation. It was thus at the end of July during the ceremony of homage to the priest Jacques Hamel, slaughtered in his church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in 2016. To avoid this, his movements are now announced at the last minute to the press, if at all.
In this case, only one info channel is invited. But, says his entourage, the minister is “in no way prevented” and these manifestations are the result of “political activists”. Another pitfall that awaits the minister: obtaining results, because, as Franck Louvrier emphasizes, the field cannot make a policy. “Omnipresence is useless if there is no decision”. Way to underline a weakness of Gerald Darmanin, taken back in particular by the recent incidents after the match PSG-Bayern.
“We must beware of matamorism, we must act“, warned Prime Minister Jean Castex Wednesday on France Inter, evoking a summer “not satisfying” in the field of delinquency.
This lack of immediate results, the detractors of Gérald Darmanin immediately seized, the right and the far right reproaching him for the impotence of the police in the face of the thugs and putting away his denunciations of “unacceptable violence” in the rank of wishful thinking.
“The expectations of the French go beyond the need to be reassured. They want efficiency, results. Not agitation for agitation”, notes Mr. Moreau Chevrolet. In terms of security, the government has, according to him, a “real problem of know-how”. “He has lost the culture of maintaining order. However, public opinion awaits victories. Omnipresence is no longer enough”.
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