Aurélien Rousseau, director of Elisabeth Borne’s cabinet, is preparing to leave Matignon

A Braque is back at the Hôtel de Matignon. The Web The Green Carpet (1929), that the Pompidou had already hung there, in December 1962, took place at the very beginning of June in the office of Aurélien Rousseau, the director of the cabinet of Elisabeth Borne. This key borrowed from the reserves of the Center Georges-Pompidou, in Paris, is the last before his departure. The 46-year-old senior official, propelled to rue de Varenne on May 17, 2022 at the insistence of the Elysée, had warned that he would leave once the storm of pension reform had ped. Without waiting that the hourgl of the “hundred days” has pedAurélien Rousseau should leave his post – except in exceptional circumstances – in four weeks, on 1er July. The enarque with a Cévennes accent will return to the Council of State pending his next appointment. He is approached at the Caisse des dépôts, for the post of deputy general manager. Contacted by The worldthe person concerned refuses to confirm his future ignment.

Within the quartet that rules France, Emmanuel Macron, the secretary general of the Elysée Palace Alexis Kohler and Elisabeth Borne have each, in their own way, tried to retain the former director of the Ile-de-France regional health agency. of France, unanimously appreciated. Without success.

Between a prime minister and his right-hand man, friendship makes it possible to absorb the shocks that ignite or paralyze a country. Twenty-year-old accomplices, Edouard Philippe and Benoît Ribadeau-Dumas had to face the crisis of “yellow vests” and that of Covid-19. The most unexpected duo – they did not know each other – formed by Aurélien Rousseau and Elisabeth Borne, an alliance of “Michel Galabru of the administration and Darth Vader” (as they were baptized at Matignon), suffered, meanwhile, the jolts of the pension reform.

The former deputy director of the cabinets of Manuel Valls, Bernard Cazeneuve and Bertrand Delanoë, spoke in vain, night and day, on the telephone with the leader of the Les Républicains (LR) party Eric Ciotti, the right did not vote the text. “I need to find a more political ‘dircab’”, snapped the Prime Minister, under pressure. The crisis has left its mark at the top, where the relief of seeing the first decrees of the law on pensions published in Official newspaper crumbles in this fourteenth day of trade union action, Tuesday, June 6after six months of mobilization.

A harsh climate

In the eyes of Aurélien Rousseau, immigration promises to be another matter. The prospect of a negotiation in the form of torture with the right convinces him that it is time to retire, he who defines himself as a man of the left attached to his socialist friendships. Already, Elisabeth Borne and Gérald Darmanin have opened, under pressure from LR, the file for state medical aid (AME) – which covers care for foreigners in an irregular situation – a first under Emmanuel Macron.

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