Reshuffle: Olivier Véran leaves the government, replaced by Prisca Thévenot

Olivier Véran was not reappointed this Thursday in the government of Gabriel Attal. At 43, he handed over the keys of the spokesperson to Prisca Thévenot, until then Secretary of State for Youth and Universal National Service (SNU). This is the end of a four-year adventure within the executive for the Macronist. After a short-lived stint in Relations with Parliament during the first Borne team, the former socialist inherited the position held by Olivia Grégoire last July. A high-risk morocco to which was added the “Democratic Renewal” portfolio.

But in truth, it was especially at the Ministry of Health and Solidarity that the hospital doctor became known to the general public, during the first five-year term. In February 2020, and as the first wave of Covid-19 approached, he replaced Agnès Buzyn at short notice, propelled as the majority candidate for mayor of Paris after the withdrawal of Benjamin Griveaux. A few weeks later, France went under lockdown. The pandemic is disrupting the priorities of the minister, who has barely installed himself on avenue de Ségur. As soon as he arrives, everything comes together. The controversy over masks, insufficient state stocks, saturated emergencies and above all a first confinement. Very quickly, the Grenoblois became the man of the daily “press briefings”, alongside Prime Minister Jean Castex. The health crisis propelled him onto television sets, where he explained the benefits of barrier gestures and vaccination.

Olivier Véran barely saved his skin in May 2022 after the re-election of Emmanuel Macron, when there was talk of ejecting him altogether from the executive. Having left the media radar at Relations with Parliament, he returned a year later to the spotlight of the spokesperson. Not really a promotion, some of his colleagues scoffed: after leading the thick Ministry of Health, the forty-something found himself without any administration under his supervision. The one who took a liking to the spotlight during the epidemic also felt cramped in his costume, and insisted on the fact that he was also responsible for “democratic renewal”, a nebulous concept attached to the title of his functions. But his proposals, like that of a citizens' convention on immigration, have generally remained a dead letter.

In recent months, this graduate of Sciences Po Paris has nevertheless managed to make a name for himself with his solitary tour in cities led by the National Rally (RN). Sometimes flanked by ministers, he went to Beaucaire (Gard), Hayange (Moselle) or even Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales) to provide after-sales service for government measures. At the start of the school year in September, he is trying to mark the occasion with his “Agora” application, a platform on which ministers respond on camera to questions asked by French people. Way of “weaving a direct link between (him) and the citizens”, he justified.

After the end of his ministerial adventure, the deputy for Isère could return to the benches of the National Assembly, where his former prime minister Élisabeth Borne will also sit. “If he returns to the Assembly, he could once again become general rapporteur of the social affairs committee,” ventures a ministerial advisor. A responsibility that he held between 2017 and 2020, before being appointed to Health. It was in the Hemicycle, after the election of François Hollande in 2012, that the neurologist took his first steps in politics. Joined the PS, he was then deputy to the socialist Geneviève Fiorasco, promoted to Secretary of State for Higher Education under Manuel Valls, the day after the legislative elections. In 2016, he crossed paths with Emmanuel Macron, whose “pro-European commitment” seduced him. A year later, he joined the En Marche! candidate. during the presidential campaign, which made him his health referent.