We know the President’s love for the city in the South of France. On many occasions, Brigitte Macron’s husband has also shouted his loyalty to Olympique de Marseille, a famous football club in perpetual rivalry with Paris Saint-Germain. In 2017, while taking a few days of vacation in the Bouches-du-Rhône, the politician, newly elected head of state, even kicked the ball with the famous sportsmen of his favorite club during training at the Commanderie, where he was the guest of honor of club president Jacques-Henri Eyraud. From there to imagine himself mayor of the Phocaean city… In any case, this is the destiny that Bernard Tapie would have wished for him, businessmen and incidentally the former boss of the Olympique de Marseille. In April 2016, already, Bernard Tapie, who recently confided in the evolution of his cancer, confided to L’Express : “With his charisma and the ability to serve his constituency, he could be elected MP anywhere without worry. Mayor of Marseille, why not? He came in front of business leaders, he was a hit, it was a festival! But we must not tell people that we are here only in a presidential strategy. ” As the journalist Renaud Revel writes in his book full of anecdotes on the Presidents of the Fifth Republic, Evening Visitors (published on January 21, 2021 by Plon and that Current wife could read), Bernard Tapie already imagined a great political career for Emmanuel Macron. But, judging him too young to accede to the presidency, he initially advised him to become mayor of Marseille.
“Marseille, that pisses me off!” answers Emmanuel Macron
In the chapter devoted to Alain Minc, “Essayist, advisor, jack-of-all-trades, influencer, business and media man” and especially evening visitor, the journalist Renaud Revel reports a conversation that the latter had with Bernard Tapie. The two men advise Emmanuel Macron to wait for the next presidential election, that of 2022, before robbing the Elysee. Bernard Tapie then calls Alain Minc to tell him and submit the idea of becoming a city councilor. “‘I have a message for your friend Macron. I saw it in Marseille and I found it wonderful! He must take the city and afterwards nothing will stop him. Gaudin will agree. The bourgeois will be happy. The Socialists will try to save three pieces of furniture. And the Little Prince will have been elected from the northern districts. A boulevard…’ ‘Bright’, says the essayist, who goes to Bercy where he reports to the young minister his conversation with the former boss of OM.” But the former Minister of the Economy does not want to hear about it. “’A very good politician, says Emmanuel Macron with a smile, but it’s no, I won’t do it like that. Marseille pisses me off! You live on the edge of the system, outside the pot. Tell him that I want, that I will go fast. Without going through the municipal hut. It’s now or never !” The rest, we know it: he was elected President on May 14, 2017, even before having celebrated his forty spring. “Six years have passed, and Alain Minc confesses to having tried to dissuade him from launching an assault on the Elysée – ‘too young, too early’ -, convinced that at barely thirty-eight he was taking a risks. But he admits to having ‘totally messed up. I was wrong.'”
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