Hard- line minister proves indispensable to Macron
PARIS » He has declared war on the Islamist “enemy within” and halal food shelves in supermarkets. He launched what he described as a “massive” operation against 76 of France’s mosques, and sought to criminalize the filming of police officers. And he announced that he “can’t breathe” when he hears the term “police violence” — mocking a cry against police brutality that originated in the United States and resonated around the world.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin of France is at the center of a triple- headed political crisis that is rocking the late stages of the presidency of Emmanuel Macron — over Islam, police brutality and freedom of the press.
And there is no sign that Darmanin is buckling.
This past week, the youthful, 38- year- old Darmanin appeared on the cover of the magazine Paris Match, a sure sign that he has transcended the Paris political bubble and entered into the public consciousness.
Vilified on the left and mistrusted by former colleagues on the right, Darmanin, who is the minister in charge of the French police, has become indispensable to Macron at a time when a majority of French are demanding law, order and toughness in the face of what the president calls “Islamism” after a spate of terrorist attacks.
“For Emmanuel Macron, he’s his guarantee to the
Interior Minister
right,” said Boris Vallaud, a prominent socialist in the French Parliament
In the pugnacious and ambitious Darmanin, Macron has found an ideal confluence of the man and the political moment, acting in response to France’s sharp shift to the right. Free- lance jihadis have murdered French citizens; Darmanin is there to search and question Muslims suspected of extremism. Police are accused of brutality and racism in a series of violent incidents; Darmanin is there to defend them and insist they need better equipment and working conditions.
“We owe them an apology for the way we put them out in the streets to do a job that’s very difficult,” Darmanin said at a recent parliamentary hearing. He decried the “unspeakable” video of police beating of a Black music producer in Paris this month that went viral on social media and brought new calls to address racism and police brutality, but he also insisted it was merely the work of “individuals.”
Darmanin’s predecessor at the Interior Ministry, Christophe Castaner, was dismissed over the summer after hinting that there is racism in the police, infuriating the unions. Darmanin runs no such risk. Now he must answer to union fury at Macron for daring to make similar suggestions in an interview with Brut, an online news site.
The minister’s parliamentary performance was soothing to the all- powerful police unions, reassuring to Macron’s crucial constituents on the right, and offered a nod to those disturbed by the violence. That can only aid the onward march of a political chameleon who many believe has the presidential Élysée Palace as his ultimate goal.
So eager was Macron to retain Darmanin — he was previously the public accounts minister before his appointment to the interior post in July — that the president has brushed off a 2009 rape accusation against the minister that is still under investigation.
“Darmanin is someone who adapts very impressively to his circumstances,” said Pierre Mathiot, the director of the Political Studies Institute at Lille, where Darmanin was a student, and who has known him for several decades.
“So he’s understood that he’s got to be the minister of the police. And not of the people who have relations with them,” Mathiot said.
Critics have struggled to situate Darmanin politically, which speaks to his great usefulness for Macron, who has staked out a middle ground himself. Is he from the right? From the center? Even a little bit on the left, because of his modest family background? “It’s hard to say whether he’s authoritarian or not,” Mathiot said. “I don’t think he’s that different from Macron.”