During the transfer of power on Friday January 12, Olivier Véran handed over his functions as spokesperson to Prisca Thévenot. In his speech, he announced that he would find “full freedom of speech” and expressed some subtle jabs at Emmanuel Macron.
After four years in the government, Olivier Véran, who does not appear in the list of Gabriel Attal’s government, was dismissed as spokesperson for the executive. Friday January 12, during the handover of power with his successor Prisca Thévenot, he wished “long life and full success” to the new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal “and to his government”. The Grenoblois who should return to the National Assembly and his conscription in Isère as a deputy and could be a future head of the list for the European elections, issued some subtle barbs against President Emmanuel Macron.
“Always keep your mind alert, agree to recognize that you can be wrong. You can be right in substance, but never when you are right alone. You do not emerge a winner from a conflict because you have it won by authority” he said during his speech, recalling the importance of listening to each other, including in politics. And the former minister added: “Agreeing with someone who does not come from the same place as you, with someone who is not supposed to think like you, is not compromise, no, it’s courage. In politics, we call it surpassing oneself, dear to the President of the Republic.” A way of reminding the Head of State of his own principles after a year 2023 which saw several pieces of legislation adopted painfully and forcefully perfected thanks to 49.3.
Did Olivier Véran want to refer to immigration law? The text, adopted at the end of the year, fractured the majority and dealt the final blow to the most left wing of the government. Olivier Véran has never expressed his opposition to the law, although he has acknowledged that there are “things in the text that we do not like”. Now that he has been dismissed from his functions as spokesperson, Olivier Véran has announced that he has “now regained full freedom of speech”. On
