EDITORIAL. Emmanuel Macron's strange summer reminder to François Bayrou on Algeria

The President wrote a letter to his Prime Minister, asking him to be more firm with Algeria. The letter was revealed by the press.

Emmanuel Macron is engaging in a very strange maneuver with regard to his Prime Minister. Strange because of the timing, in the middle of the summer torpor, while he himself is in the summer residence of presidents, while part of the government team is on vacation and another is mobilized on the front lines of the Aude fire . But above all strange because of the method: a letter that the President of the Republic addresses to his Prime Minister, a letter that he considers necessary to make public, while he could have, as he often does, expressed his position in the gilded halls of the Élysée Palace, during the Council of Ministers.

Could there be a hint of manipulation, or even a desire to humiliate, in the presidential approach? What is certain is that by demanding greater firmness with Algiers, Emmanuel Macron is doing exactly what the government was asking for. He therefore had no need to remind the government of this, and even less so to do so in public.

What does this Algerian episode say about the relationship between Emmanuel Macron and his Prime Minister? That it is complex, and likely becoming more so. And this is not new. Before rallying to Emmanuel Macron in 2017, François Bayrou, the Christian Democrat, denounced him as a liberal, "the candidate of the forces of money." And since he has been at Matignon, the mayor of Pau has constantly emphasized his freedom, while the head of state has been ruthlessly reining him in, demanding that he keep his troops in line, and in particular, preventing Bruno Retailleau from taking the spotlight.

Would Emmanuel Macron be tempted to push his Prime Minister out? It's not the most likely scenario, but it is one. Generally, under the Fifth Republic, the President is "protected" by his Prime Minister, who serves as his "fuse." In the case of the Macron-Bayrou couple, it's different: the Prime Minister is certainly very unpopular, but he's a "Teflon" Prime Minister: all crises slide off him.

From there to thinking that the president would be well advised to separate from him even before being censored because he would drag him into his unpopularity, there is only one step. But without going that far, with this letter, it is a weakened Emmanuel Macron who kills two birds with one stone: by asking François Bayrou to act, he puts Bruno Retailleau in his place, whose presidential ambition is asserting itself a little more each day, and he reminds us that until 2027, the only master of France's foreign policy is him.