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POLITICS

Who’s who in the new French government

France has a new government after president Emmanuel Macron conducted a - limited - reshuffle of his ministers. Here's the complete list of the new government.

Published: 20 July 2023 16:45 CEST
Updated: 22 July 2023 13:48 CEST
Who's who in the new French government
The new cabinet will meet on Friday morning. Photo by Geoffroy Van der Hasselt/AFP

Many of the biggest names of the government are remaining in post after Macron opted for a fairly limited remaniement (reshuffle) on Thursday.

Despite widespread rumours that she would lose her job after the bitterly divisive pension reform, Elisabeth Borne remains in post as prime minister. Likewise finance minister Bruno Le Maire – Macron’s longest-serving minister who has been in the same role since 2017 – and interior minister Gérald Darmanin.

Although many of the newcomers are not well known names, many of them are Macron loyalists, with an emphasis on political experience rather than the appointment of outside experts to ministries.

The Council of Ministers – complete with newly appointed ministers – will meet on Friday morning, where Macron will address the new team. He then heads off to the Pacific for a series of diplomatic meetings, while the Assemblée nationale completes its final sessions before the summer break.

The month of August normally sees limited political activity in France as the country heads off on holiday, with la rentrée in September marking the presentation of a new programme of policies from the ruling party. 

Here are the new ministers;

Gabriel Attal – Education minister. Not a newcomer to government, the 34-year-old Attal has previously been government spokesman and public accounts minister. He replaced Pap Ndiaye – an outside appointment who previously worker as an academic and was best known for his work on race relations. 

Aurélien Rousseau – Health minister. A technocrat who previously ran the office for Elisabeth Borne, Rousseau was in charge of the Paris regional health authority during the pandemic. Unusually in a country where the health minister is often a doctor, he has no medical qualifications. He replaces François Braun, a civil servant who had previously run the ambulance service. 

Aurore Bergé – Solidarity minister. Considered a close ally of Macron and the leader of his party in the Assemblée nationale, Bergé becomes the junior minister at the health ministry, the number two to Aurélien Rousseau. She replaces Jean-Christophe Comb, the former head of the Red Cross in France, in the role.

Sabrina Agresti-Roubache – minister for urban affairs. A relative newcomer to parliament, she was elected MP for Bouches-du-Rhône (including Marseille) in 2022. Reputed to be close to Macron, she was formerly a producer who worked on the fabulously trashy Netflix series Marseille – a political drama centred around the (fictional) mayor of Marseille.

Bérangère Couillard – equalities minister. Moving from the environment ministry is MP for Gironde. She replaces Isabelle Rome.

Sarah El Haïry – Biodiversity Minister. Former youth minister Sarah El Haïry moves to the newly created role of biodiversity minister, part of the gradual expansion of the environment ministry. 

Philippe Vigier – minister for overseas territories. Vigier is an MP for the centrist party MoDem, the major allies of Macron’s party in parliament. He replaces Jean-François Carenco.

Patrice Vergriete – housing minister. Currently the mayor of Dunkirk, Vergriete has a background in urban planning and housing.

Thomas Cazenave – budget minister. The MP for the Gironde area (around Bordeaux) steps into the junior finance ministry role vacated by Gabriel Attal.

Fadila Khattabi – Minister for disabilities. Former president of the commission for social affairs, she replaces Geneviève Darrieussecq in the role.

Social economy minister. The previous holder of the post, Marlène Schiappa will leave the government after a series of controversies – the most serious being the ongoing investigation into the use of funds from a charitable organisation designed to combat extremism which she was responsible for running. She also made headlines when she appeared – clothed – in Playboy magazine. Her responsibilities will be divided between other junior ministers in the finance ministry.

The rest of the ministers remain in their previous positions. They are;

Prime Minister – Élisabeth Borne
Finance Minister – Bruno Le Maire
Interior Minister – Gérald Darmanin
Foreign Minister – Catherine Colonna
Government spokesperson – Olivier Véran 
Environment Minister – Christophe Béchu
Minister of Energy Transition – Agnès Pannier-Runacher
Agriculture Minister – Marc Fesneau
Justice Minister – Éric Dupond-Moretti
Defence Minister – Sébastien Lecornu
Labour Minister – Olivier Dussopt
Culture Minister – Rima Abdul Malak
Minister of higher education – Sylvie Retailleau
Minister of Public functions – Stanislas Guerini
Minister of sports and the Olympics/ Paralympics – Amélie Oudéa-Castéra

Junior ministers

Minister for relations with Parliament – Franck Reister
Minister for childhood- Charlotte Caubel
Minister of the seas – Hervé Berville
Minister of industry – Roland Lescure
Minister of digitalisation and telecommunications – Jean-Nöel Barrot
Minister of small businesses and tourism – Olivia Grégoire
Minister of territorial collectivities and rurality – Dominique Faure
Minister of citizenship – Sonia Backès
Minister of external commerce and France abroad – Olivier Becht
Europe Minister – Laurence Boone
Minister of development and the Francophone world/ international partners – Chrysoula Zacharopoulou
Minister of remembrance of former soldiers – Patricia Mirallès
Minister of youth education and training – Carole Grandjean
Minister of transport – Clément Beaune
Minister for healthcare workers – Agnès Firmin le Bodo 

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ELECTIONS

Explained: The party manifestos for France’s snap elections

As the formal campaign period begins in France's snap legislative elections, here's a look at the manifestos of the main parties and what they mean for foreigners living here.

Published: 17 June 2024 12:13 CEST
Explained: The party manifestos for France's snap elections

Monday marks the start of the official campaign period for France’s snap legislative elections – a brief two-week campaign before the first round of voting on Sunday, June 30th followed by round two a week later on July 7th. 

Here’s a look at the manifestos of the main parties, with a particular emphasis on any immigration policies that would affect the lives of foreigners in France, or those planning to move here some day.

Renaissance

First up is Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party Renaissance – its platform was unveiled by Macron himself in a televised press conference, with a more detailed programme unveiled later by prime minister Gabriel Attal.

The party is at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to the programme, since its main policy goals are already known and it is limited by financial and other factors from announcing any especially bold new goals. The result was that Macron in his launch speech was left to talk about policies that had already been announced or vague goals such as holding a ‘national debate’ on France’s secularism policy.

Macron also framed the election as a ‘battle against extremism’ saying: “I hope that when the time comes, men and women of goodwill who will have been able to say no to the extremes will come together… to build a shared, sincere project that is useful to the country.” 

Programme – Much of the programme will be familiar since Macron was after all re-elected in 2022 and set out his five-year plan at the time. On the economy and the environment, the president said that his party would continue to grow foreign investment in France, cut unemployment and work towards the ‘green reindustrialisation’ of the country – a Macron pet project to create jobs and industry in France by embracing new green technologies such as car batteries.

He also re-committed to France’s domestic nuclear energy programme, and to France’s strong support for Ukraine.

Among the new parts were a ‘great national debate’ on the tricky subject of French state secularism (laïcité) and limits to access to screens for children – as recommended by a commission of experts.

Attal also unveiled some new measures on the key issue of the cost-of-living, with promises to triple the ‘Macron bonus’ paid to some employees from €3,000 a year to €10,000, index-linking pensions to inflation, reducing utility bills by 15 percent next winter and help for parents in buying school supplies.

He also proposes axing the notaire fee (in reality a kind of tax on home purchases) for any property purchased for under €250,000 and setting up an extra renovation fund to give grants to property-owners to repairs and energy works.

Some ongoing Macronist legislation such as changing the law on assisted dying has been interrupted on its journey through parliament, but would likely restart if the party wins a majority.

The party’s programme makes no specific suggestions for changes to the immigration system, but it did just introduce a new immigration law in January that – among other things – introduces a language test requirement for certain types of residency cards and raises the language level required for French citizenship through naturalisation.

Front Populaire

France’s largest leftist political parties have struck an election pact not to stand candidates against each other – in order to avoid dividing the leftist vote.

This means that the hard-left La France Insoumise will field 229 candidates, the centre-left Parti Socialiste will field 175, the Green EELV 92 and the Communists 50. It also means that the parties are presenting a single, joint manifesto under the banner of Nouveau Front Populaire – which has been the subject of much argument and some awkward compromises.

Programme – much of the programme is concerned with cancelling recent Macronist laws. Among the laws it says it will cancel are the new immigration bill – the one that introduces French language tests for certain types of residency card and raises the language level required for French citizenship.

The manifesto also proposes introducing a 10-year carte de séjour residency card ‘as the standard card’ – at present the standard model is for one-year cards initially and then move on to five-year and then 10-year cards, although there are significant variations based on your personal status (eg working, student, retired or family member).

Also set for the chop are Macron’s changes to unemployment benefits plus a cancellation of the price rises in electricity and gas and the reintroduction of the ‘wealth tax’ scrapped by Macron in 2018. Meanwhile the pension age would be dropped down to 60 (cancelling Macron’s law raising it from 62 to 64 and dropping it another two years).

The party would also raise the Smic (minimum wage) to €1,600 a month.

The environment forms a key part of the manifesto with a range of green incentives plus tax and financing rules that would clamp down on fossil fuels.

On foreign policy there are some delicately worded compromises since views on Ukraine and Gaza had previously split the leftist alliance. The group promises to “unfailingly defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people” including by delivering weapons and writing off debt. On Gaza, the party would recognise the Palestinian state and embargo arms supplies to Israel.

Policy towards the EU – a topic that divides the left – is left to one side.

Rassemblement National

The far-right Rassemblement National party will be joined by at least some candidates from the right-wing Les Republicains party, although the internal party divide over that pact will see some LR candidates independently. 

Programme – the party makes immigration one of its key concerns, with a commitment to “drastically reduce legal and illegal immigration and deport foreign criminals” listed as a priority.

The programme opposes both non-economic migration and family reunification – no detail is given on changes to the visa or residency card system in this area, but it seems likely that anyone wanting to move for non-work related reasons (eg retirees) would face restrictions. Likewise spouse visas would be affected by any changes to family reunification rules.

Non-French citizens would only be able to access social benefits such as housing benefits or caring allowances after working in France for five years and there would also be a ‘French first’ preference for access to employment and social housing.

Residency permits would be withdrawn for any non-French citizens who have been unemployed for more than one year.

Asylum claims would exclusively be processed outside France.

When it comes to French citizenship, the party wants to abolish the droit du sol, which gives the right to French citizenship to children born in France to foreign parents and limit access to citizenship for adults “on the basis of merit and assimilation” – it’s not clear how this would differ from the current system where candidates must already prove that they speak French and understand French culture and politics.

The party also has a strong line on law and order – doubling the number of magistrates, increasing fines for certain offences, adding those convicted of street harassment to the sex offenders’ register and creating a “presumption of legitimate defence” for police officers who kill or injure members of the public.

This article is part of a series on election platforms in France, we will look at each party’s economic platform in a separate piece. You can follow all the latest election news in our election section HERE, and you can also sign up here to receive our bi-weekly election breakdown during the campaign period

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