Elisabeth Borne warned her team: since Emmanuel Macron instructed her last Saturday, in an interview with AFP, to “submit proposals (…) for the composition of a new government of action in the service of France that we will put in place in the first days of July”, she intends to discuss with him the case of Damien Abad. The Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and People with Disabilities, against whom a complaint for attempted rape was filed Monday, June 27, is also the subject of accusations by two other women – one of them brought complaint twice, these two complaints were dismissed. The Paris prosecutor’s office has now opened a preliminary investigation for attempted rape.
The head of government had already had a discussion with the president in the wake of the announcement of his first government, after the Mediapart revelations. As well as a tense exchange, on Sunday May 22 in the evening, with Damien Abad: she then asks him direct and precise questions. Today, Matignon’s position seems to be the following: he should not be reappointed. Elisabeth Borne knows well that it is impossible to part with ministers simply following an anonymous denunciation, but she often insists on the example that each member of the government must set. “We can think that the name of Abad will not appear in the list that she will give to Emmanuel Macron”, advances a minister.
The president has always been more than reluctant to oust a leader under media pressure and does not want to create a precedent which he believes would be fatal to political power. In an interview with the regional daily press on June 3, he still affirmed that “the protection of the presumption of innocence is important” and that “Damien Abad is entitled to it like any citizen”.
This time, however, the context appears a little different, when an opportunity arises. “If there was no reshuffle, he would not move, notes a minister among those close to Emmanuel Macron. There, the reshuffle would give a less jurisprudential character to the ousting of Abad. But if we cross out her name, can we not cross out that of Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, the French Secretary of State in charge of Development targeted by complaints for rape for acts committed within the framework of her profession of gynecologist.
“It’s 50/50,” said one of his advisers. Damien Abad is aware of this, the risk is real that he will not appear in the next government. He is neither close to Emmanuel Macron – whom he has not seen one-on-one, either before being appointed or since he was appointed – nor to Elisabeth Borne, who is very angry with him for having ruined his arrival at Matignon. In recent hours, he was thinking about the opportunity to come and explain himself in a media. But it is especially far from the microphones that he fights.
With his relays at the top of the state, he underlines that the judicial situation will allow him, through confrontations, to assert his truth, he who denies all the accusations. He also highlights his political assets: being a right-wing minister, who is familiar with the functioning of Parliament like the LR group, for having chaired it for almost three years. On June 19, his re-election as deputy for Ain, with 57.86% of the vote, against a candidate from Nupes (i.e. 17,687 votes, when he had obtained 19,383 in 2017), is supposed to have given him back some oxygen. “If he is the only minister fired with those who were beaten in the legislative elections, it will show,” notes a relative. In the neighboring wing of the ministry he occupies is a certain Brigitte Bourguignon, who is about to leave her post as Minister of Health after her defeat in the 6th district of Pas-de-Calais.
