“We will never be a party like the others”. Gabriel Attal was officially elected secretary general of Renaissance on Sunday, after having dissuaded competition within Emmanuel Macron’s party, which must reinvent itself in the midst of a political crisis.
The former Prime Minister won 94.9% of the votes in the National Council, a sort of party parliament, which met on Sunday in a hotel in the Montparnasse district of Paris.
Mr. Attal was the only one in the running to succeed Stéphane Séjourné, after the withdrawal of Élisabeth Borne’s candidacy.
The two former Prime Ministers finally made a joint list and agreed on the distribution of tendencies within the executive office, the party government, which will be installed “in a few weeks”.
“We will never be a party like the others”, “an association of political rentiers hungry for power and devoid of values”launched Gabriel Attal at the end of the National Council.
Having distanced himself from President Emmanuel Macron after a dissolution of the National Assembly in which he was not associated and which brought an abrupt end to his brief lease in Matignon, Mr. Attal thus completes his takeover of the Macronist activist apparatus, after having already been elected to the presidency of the group of deputies in July, despite the wishes of the Élysée.
The task is daunting as the party seems weakened after seven years in power, and while within the central bloc, Édouard Philippe, who founded his Horizons party, has already announced his candidacy for the Elysium.
The elected secretary general of Renaissance Gabriel Attal (c, d) and the elected president of the National Council of French Renaissance Elisabeth Borne (cg) during the party’s national council, December 8, 2024 in Paris / Behrouz MEHRI / AFP
There was relatively little talk of Emmanuel Macron during this meeting of some 300 to 400 executives of the party he founded in 2016.
No more than the political crisis, when the head of state must appoint a Prime Minister in the coming days after the fall of the Barnier government. Asked by the press on this subject, Mr. Attal did not wish to respond.
The end of the Macron era at Renaissance? “If I’m here, it’s thanks to him”. “I know what I owe him, I know what I owe you”said Mr. Attal to ovations.
“States General”
More “I will always be free, we will always be free”launched the elected official from Hauts-de-Seine, determined to relaunch this party through a vast work program for the start of 2025.
Gabriel Attal elected secretary general of Renaissance, during the party’s national council, December 8, 2024 in Paris / Behrouz MEHRI / AFP
He thus intends to initiate “the largest mobilization since the great march” from 2016 and “launch states general”. It is up to local committees and their members to spread the word of activism, including by reaching out to ex-marchers.
“We will meet together by March for a big gathering” which will be used to “return the verdict of our activists, set new directions, assert strong lines and clear values”.
Mr. Attal also intends to launch “thematic conventions” around “three major subjects”: work, “republican firmness” and ecological transition.
The “the words of our members must be at the center of everything”he insisted. Which should suit Élisabeth Borne, elected Sunday morning president of the National Council, a body that she intends to use “fully the role of Renaissance parliament”.
Ms. Borne also announced a work program for this body, with the creation of commissions modeled on parliamentary commissions.
Elisabeth Borne makes a statement after being elected president of the national council of Renaissance, December 8, 2024 in Paris / Behrouz MEHRI / AFP
The National Council also adopted two thematic motions, one on sexist and sexual violence presented by former minister Aurore Bergé, the other carried by the president of Youth with Macron, Ambroise Méjean, reaffirming the attachment of gone to “moralization of political life”.
Mr. Méjean notably said he regretted that leaders “including within (his) political family” have criticized the requisitions, particularly the risk of immediately enforceable ineligibility, against Marine Le Pen (RN) in the trial of parliamentary assistants in the European Parliament. Aiming without naming Gérald Darmanin, absent from this National Council which was however attended by Bruno Le Maire or even Richard Ferrand.
