Alexandre Chauveau / Credits: GUILLAUME SOUVANT / AFP 2:09 p.m., September 20, 2024
He is the great absentee from the future government. Laurent Wauquiez, the leader of the LR deputies in the National Assembly, refused the Ministry of Economy. He nevertheless maintained his support for the Prime Minister and will try to weigh in at the Palais Bourbon.
Laurent Wauquiez is the notable absentee from Michel Barnier’s future government. He notably refused Bercy, because as he told the LR parliamentary group yesterday, he only considered himself useful at the Ministry of the Interior. This choice is an argument that some in his political family hear, even if many see it as a way to avoid participation in a government destined to fall.
2027 in mind
Laurent Wauquiez is still cultivating his ambition for the next presidential election. “He understood that power would be in Parliament,” says a member of parliament from his camp. The former regional president intends to make his mark on the Palais Bourbon on issues that are dear to him: no tax increases, a position shared with Macronie, but also the reduction of migratory flows and vigilance in the end-of-life bill.
Two subjects that foreshadow virulent debates. He should thus, on the benches of the Assembly, rub shoulders with Marine Le Pen, François Hollande, Gabriel Attal or Gérald Darmanin, while accompanying the return of the Republicans to the government, and this, twelve years after the end of the Sarkozy five-year term.
