His finance minister FranceBrinot Le Maire has reportedly already begun to distance himself from the French President. Emmanuel Macronperhaps cultivating his ambition to succeed him in the palace on the Champs Elysees, according to Politico magazine.

The French minister’s personal aspirations have long been an open secret in Parisian political circles, but his recent tiffs with the French president have raised suspicions that Mr. Le Maire is trying to outshine his boss.

The finance minister has gained increasing attention in recent weeks for acting on his own initiative and defying directives from Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne regarding public statements.

Missed calls…

It was a rare occasion that Macron publicly questioned his minister’s efforts to help bakers and confectioners cope with rising energy prices, saying that he tried to call the telephone line set up by the Ministry of Economy to help industry professionals, but the line was not working.

In fact, the line of communication that does not seem to be working is the line between the president and the minister, since the support measures for the bakery sector announced by Mr. Le Maire should have been announced by Mr. Macron himself.

Even more typical was Mr Macron’s confessionabout the skirmishes in the cabinet, speaking to the French network BMF TV. “In politics, you have to put your ego aside. Our fellow citizens do not care if there are difficulties with each other,” he said.

Auror Berger, head of Macron’s revival party in parliament, summed up Mr Le Maire’s attitude towards the president on the issue more directly: “He basically says, ‘I am Brino Le Maire, and I am humiliating you.’ .

“The president doesn’t like it when someone doesn’t work on the team and tries to draw attention to himself, so he put him in his place. We only have four or five years to prove ourselves and some are already thinking about what to do next,” a government adviser said, commenting on the recent tensions in the government.