Emmanuel Macron facing a former ENA comrade… and they are not really friends

Re-elected last Sunday deputy of the Landes, Boris Vallaud was chosen, without too much surprise, to chair the group of 32 socialist deputies in the National Assembly. “It’s a possibility. I am waiting to know the choice of our current president, Valérie Rabault. I’m not going to face him” had responded the husband of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem to the rumors that were already running about his new role. He harvested 26 votes and thus exceeded the deputy of Mayenne, Guillaume Garot which only had 4 votes. Jérôme Guedj had first shown his interest in the position before backtracking. The former comrade of Emmanuel Macron at the ENA, therefore finds himself at the head of the PS group.

At 46, he is director of the cabinet of Arnaud Montebourg at the Ministry of Productive Recovery and then of the Economy. Boris Vallaud was also Deputy Secretary General of the Élysée in 2014. Today, he has set himself the goal of giving “new impetus” to the PS group in the National Assembly. While he was in the same class as the President of the Republic, he refused to work with his former comrade when he was a minister, because he was not “not very comfortable” with some of these projects. In particular the Labor law and the forfeiture of nationality.

Emmanuel Macron and Boris Vallaud, not really friends?

The deputy of Landes and now president of the PS group in the National Assembly was in the same class as the President of the Republic. However, Boris Vallaud and Emmanuel Macron are not really friends. “I don’t have any personal issues with Emmanuel Macron that I haven’t seen for a long time. We are a little angry, I won’t hide it from you” confided the politician on RTL in February 2020. “I have a problem and a deep political disagreement with him. Has he changed? On a human level, I don’t know, I haven’t seen him for a long time. Politically, not everything surprises me” he added. Boris Valland added that his former comrade had already a liberal leaning “more or less assertive” since they were both students. Two years ago, the husband of Najat Vallaud-Belkacem was a member of the special commission in charge of examining the pension reform bill. “There’s an optimistic part of me that hopes it’s just amateurish and unprepared. There is the worried part which is to tell me: be careful, behind what is vague, there is no trouble” he confided. Before adding that Emmanuel Macron made “the choice of an accelerated procedure” for a project which should have taken its time.