Arthur de Laborde / Photo credit: Xose Bouzas / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
“It shows that he is at work,” said his relatives. For the past few days, Gérald Darmanin has been on all fronts. This Friday, the Minister of the Interior was traveling to Nîmes where a ten-year-old child and an 18-year-old young man lost their lives in the Pissevin district, plagued by drug trafficking.
The minister is making less and less mystery of his ambitions for the next presidential election and the events of the last few days are shining the spotlight on him. In government, not everyone enjoys this media hyperactivity. “It does not interest me, very sincerely. And I think that what interests the French is that we prepare for the start of the school year, that we act for their daily life in 2023”, declared in particular Gabriel Attal , Minister of National Education, during a visit to a school in Torcy in the Paris region.
Criticism of the current government
Nevertheless, in the entourage of the minister, we assume this saturation of the media space. After the events of the last few days in Nîmes, Gérald Darmanin could only go there to embody authority, plead his collaborators. “With a martial speech”, insists one of them. It must be said that the theme of the republican order is fully in line with the sovereign field of the tenant of Place Beauvau.
On the other hand, at the same time, Gérald Darmanin takes off his hat as Minister of the Interior. In a long interview with The voice of the North, he shells proposals on a whole bunch of subjects that do not come under his portfolio, such as school or work. As if he were starting to unfold a face-to-face program. The Minister of the Interior even goes so far as to criticize the current government, made up in his eyes of too technical ministers who do not sufficiently understand the French and, in particular, the working classes.
The latter will also be the theme of his political comeback which he is organizing this Sunday in his stronghold of Tourcoing, in the North.