While waiting to find out if he will be part of the next government, the Minister of National Education is starting his first campaign in Loiret, where he has no ties.
“Here, you have had only two deputies in sixty years”, reminds Jean-Michel Blanquer to Édouard and Marine Caeckaert, a couple of farmers whom he meets on May 9 in Chevry-sous-le-Bignon. And the Minister of National Education, who knows that the label of “parachuted” will stick to his skin, adds: “Jean-Pierre Door remained twenty years and his predecessor, Xavier Deniau, who had been parachuted, been elected for forty years!” In dark suit pants, white shirt and herringbone cap, not always very comfortable, he tries to understand the challenges of the sector, asks questions about the cost of raw materials, the drought, the difficulties of installation and… l school, of course.
When the operator asks him if he intends to settle, JeanMichel Blanquer promises: “I will buy a house after the election! “In the meantime, he occupies that of a friend in Montargis, the “Venice of Gâtinais”, “well known in China because Deng Xiaoping came to work there for four years as a worker in the 1920s”, jokes the one who also found a distant local tie (a maternal great-uncle, canal engineer).
“I’m going to buy a house after the election!” he promises
For months, he had been repeating that he wanted to introduce himself. Approached for the Yvelines, it was necessary to look elsewhere when the outgoing one, in fine, decided to represent herself. He could have claimed the constituency of French people living abroad which covers Latin America (he spent several years in Colombia and knows the region well), but claims to have asked to be able to present himself outside the Ile-de- France. The fourth of the Loiret is a territory “of conquest”, as we say in Macronie. Aged 80, the outgoing LR deputy hangs up. He has prepared his succession so badly that a right-wing dissident is running against Ariel Lévy, the vice-president of the departmental council invested by the party. “Blanquer will make the Gâtinais benefit from his contacts, the members are delighted to welcome him”, assures Nicolas Bertrand, LREM referent of the department.
At lunchtime, before visiting the Ladapt care center in Amilly, Jean-Michel Blanquer finds his supporters in the garden of the Château du Mez-le-Maréchal. Jean Berthaud, MoDem mayor of Dordives, is optimistic: in 2017, the majority candidate lost by eight votes. But this year, in the second round of the presidential election, the constituency placed Marine Le Pen in the lead with 52.01% of the vote. “If it falls into the hands of the RN, it will be marginalized,” warns Blanquer. He keeps his two mobile phones permanently to manage “current affairs”, in particular the baccalaureate, which begins this week, and the reception of Ukrainian students. At the ministry, he has not yet made his cards. He would like to be on the next government team… He knows that if he fails in the legislative elections he will be definitively dismissed.