Aurélien Rousseau resigned from the Ministry of Health after the vote on the immigration bill. If the government has chosen a deputy minister to act as interim minister, who will be appointed to take over the portfolio?
He slammed the door. The Minister of Health had warned several hours before the agreement of the joint committee and the vote of Parliament on the immigration bill: “If the text is voted on, I am leaving”. And Aurélien Rousseau kept his word by confirming his resignation from the government to Le Monde, this Wednesday, December 20. The immigration law is the only reason for his departure which results from an assumed personal choice: “I do not give left-wing or moral lessons to anyone. I see clinically that it is not possible for me to explain this text,” he told the newspaper.
After avoiding the subject of this sudden departure, the government confirmed the resignation of the Minister of Health who was not present at the Council of Ministers this Wednesday morning. An absence and a departure which are a priori not to Emmanuel Macron’s taste. Without mentioning Aurélien Rousseau, the head of state said to his other ministers opposed to the immigration law: “Those who doubt and have never really led a fight have no lessons to give.”
The resignation of Aurélien Rousseau at the Ministry of Health made official, the government revealed the name of the minister’s “interim” replacement. The choice fell on Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, the Minister Delegate in charge of Territorial Organization and Health Professions who is already part of the government. The minister, a pharmacist by profession, promised to “continue the work initiated with Aurélien Rousseau […] in the service of the health of the French” and to continue to “move forward” on the social network X. For her part, the former minister wished the best to a “woman of talent and commitment”.
Could this interim replacement become an official appointment? Emmanuel Macron and Elisabeth Borne are free to decide, but for now the spokesperson for the executive Olivier Véran has underlined the provisional nature of this choice. Member of the Horizons party and close to Edouard Philippe, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo presents a profile compatible with the majority while being close to the right. A profile that may fit with the political turn taken by the Head of State and the government with the vote on the immigration law.
With the place officially free, discussions on the replacement of Aurélien Rousseau at Health will begin and rumors risk being launched between the negotiations. Those blown into the corridors during the previous reshuffle, in July 2023, could return. The names of elected officials from the Horizons party had been put forward at the time: that of Frédéric Valletoux, deputy for Seine-et-Marne, and that of Arnaud Robinet, mayor of Reims and president of the French Hospital Federation (in estate of Frédéric Valletoux elsewhere). The first had been pushed by Elisabeth Borne according to information from Politico and the second was not mentioned for the first time after persistent rumors in 2011, 2017 and 2022, often for the Ministry of Health, as recalled by Union. The two men could still be potential ministers, both having a political profile and an attraction to health or social issues.
Another name mentioned during the previous reshuffle: Republican Philippe Juvin. The Hauts-de-Seine MP and professional doctor assured that he had been “approached” by the government to take charge of the Ministry of Health in July 2023. An outstretched hand denied by the executive. According to Le Figaro, it is the man on the right who would have applied to the government, indicating that he would be “very honored to serve France [in the] government”. A desire that is still relevant today? Collaboration between the majority and the right seems possible after the vote on the immigration law, but is it desirable for a majority weakened by the same text? Nothing is less sure.
