Accustomed to local mandates and rants at the National Assembly, MoDem MP Philippe Vigier obtained, at 65, the overseas portfolio, thanks to the government reshuffle announced Thursday, July 20. Like his predecessor, Jean-François Carenco, he remains Minister Delegate, attached to Gérald Darmanin on the inside.
Graying hair and a strong character, the deputy of Eure-et-Loir is a figure of the Palais-Bourbon, where he has been elected since 2007, navigating between the centrist chapels. He is not an overseas specialist and his appointment is already arousing criticism.
“It’s a very bad signal. Vigier’s profile is not at all consistent with the reality of the territories, “regrets the deputy of Guyana Davy Rimane (GDR group, majority communist), president of the overseas delegation, interviewed by Agence France-Presse (AFP). “There were verbal battles in the Assembly and a lack of respect, at the time of the texts on the health crisis”, he adds, while the obligation to vaccinate caregivers had aroused an outcry in the overseas territories.
“He never took a position to defend our territories”, abounds the deputy of Reunion Nathalie Bassire, member of the independent group LIOT in the Assembly. Reunionese “rebellious” Jean-Hugues Ratenon notes the “little attention” of the government, with this change “barely two days after the holding of the interministerial committee for overseas territories” and its plan of 70 measures.
“I am completely listening to the territories and parliamentarians,” Philippe Vigier replied to AFP. “He is an elected official, he has only had success in the territories”, abounds his colleague MoDem Bruno Millienne.
Within the presidential camp, he has distinguished himself in recent months by carrying the word of the MoDem during the pension reform, willingly stepping up to the plate against La France insoumise. He also briefly suggested switching to a 35.5-hour working week to finance pensions, a simple “hypothesis”, he said, quickly put aside after having bristled the government.
From UDF to MoDem
Former mayor of Cloyes-sur-le-Loir (2001-2017), Philippe Vigier is a doctor of pharmacy and biologist by profession, long at the head of medical analysis laboratories. He has two passions: politics and “everything that goes fast”, motorsport, skiing, Jet-Skiing, he says.
Vice-president of the MoDem, Philippe Vigier has scoured various centrist stables, UDF, New Center and UDI. He owes his portfolio to the will of the boss of the MoDem, François Bayrou, to maintain the balance within the government, after the departure of Geneviève Darrieussecq, who was in charge of the disabled.
At the age of 16, in 1974, Philippe Vigier was already sticking up posters for the presidential campaign of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, but he only made his official entry into the UDF in the early 1990s. He was regional councilor for the Center (Centre-Val de Loire today) from 1995 to 2014, then again since 2021.
In the Assembly, he was elected, in 2014, president of the UDI parliamentary group to replace Jean-Louis Borloo. Re-elected deputy in 2017 with the support of the right and the UDI, he had gained his independence in 2018 by founding the composite group Libertés et territories, before joining the MoDem and the presidential majority in 2020. In June 2022, he had been re-elected for his fourth term as deputy.