The publication of the book and the numerous comments have made Emmanuel Macron quite angry, as reported by the Canard Enchaîné. „Everyone will wonder how the economy minister can write so many books“, the head of state complained. „That ministers publish books instead of taking care of their ministry, that doesn’t seem serious. And then these erotic scenes…“. Also according to Canard Enchaîné, Bruno Le Maire told the President of the Republic that his contract with the publisher Gallimard obliged him to publish this new book because of the advance he had received.
In fact, „La fugue américaine“ is the fifth book published in four years by Bruno Le Maire, who has been severely challenged by the Covid crisis and now with inflation. Bruno Le Maire justified himself on Twitter on April 27, stating that he was „dedicated to serving the French“ and assuring that „two things are non-negotiable: Spending time with my loved ones and cultivating my passion“. And literature in particular is his great passion: „Literature allows me to escape from everyday life“.
Being a minister means – in principle – devoting body and soul to one’s role. If you assume that political competition is always a bit of a race for popularity, then it’s also a race for visibility. The role of minister in France is an executive role that confers visibility only in the context of loyalty to the other ministers and the head of state. They are also locked into a specific domain, that of their ministry, and cannot claim a full and comprehensive personality. So from the perspective of political competition, being a minister is good, it gives visibility, but it is a visibility that has its limits.
The fact that he is writing a book allows Bruno Le Maire to distinguish himself from the government and grow intellectually. The Minister of Economy, a good little soldier who is very loyal to the Prime Minister and the President, is condemned to a certain invisibility and remains confined to rather technical subjects. The fact that he has written all these books allows him to exist in a different way and, above all, to step out of the shadow of Emmanuel Macron. In other words, he can work on his presidential stature.
In France, the book is associated in the political world with the figure of the president in the history of the V Republic, precisely with the Mémoires de Guerre by General de Gaulle or with Démocratie Française by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. President Macron has referred several times to his missed vocation as a writer while making clear his fondness for literature. His official photo, for example, features André Gide’s Les Nourritures Terrestres and Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir alongside Charles de Gaulle’s memoirs.