It is reliable said at the Elysee Palace

ELSA FREYSSENET, LES ECHOS

That day, the delegation of the CGT remained mouth EER. When Bernard Thibault came June 9 return to Eric Woerth a petition against the pension reform, the response of the Minister of labour has been also polished that direct: "thank you but I do not agree with your proposals." A sentence that summarizes the Woerth method: availability and courtesy to disarm the accrimonie, but determination on the merits. "I have a good soldier," he acknowledges. "There is a mismatch between its courteous and its lack of States of souls", critical the Socialist Marisol Touraine. "It is always right in his boots," said a negotiator of the CGT. The reference to the famous formula of Alain Juppé owes nothing to chance. It is with the former Prime Minister Eric Woerth did his classes in politics, as Parliamentary Counsel at Matignon. And it is with against example shaking of the 1995 winter he graph, fifteen years later, its communication.

Even the hour morning-8 h 30 - Wednesday Press Conference has been calculated to limit leakage on the content of the project until the Minister give, the first, his vision. It's to guide the media tone. The suite of history, suspended the ability of mobilization of the trade unions, is not written. But Eric Woerth has already gained something: the confidence of Nicolas Sarkozy. "It is reliable," said at the Elysee Palace. "It has just the right balance: it is big on records and not too flamboyant style", says one of his colleagues in the Government. How reassuring the head of State and to reconcile the support of powerful social Advisor Raymond Soubie - "Between us it is fluid," slip Eric Woerth. But what also maintain a "techno" image that former of HEC, which has just three years at Bercy, would yet be disposed. "Eric Woerth, is serious, the encrypted, solid, but this does not create a brimming with enthusiasm," regretted a UMP member.

Beyond these qualifiers, usual with respect to him, the parliamentarians and leaders of the UMP dry when asked to classify in one of the families of the right. "It is a hybrid," said spokesman Deputy of the UMP Dominique Paillé. Emmanuelle Mignon, that a has much shared it in 2005 and 2006 for the design of the project of the candidate Sarkozy, analysis: "it is rather the Liberal school, but it is above all a pragmatique.." In all aspects of the policy. Back to 2005, he was one of the first questioning to Nicolas Sarkozy. The latter has, at the time maintained in the position of Treasurer of the UMP, which he held since 2002 and still holds. Last December, the PS has stopped it on this function rollup, denouncing a "gender confusion". Renowned for never losing his composure, Eric Woerth got out of its hinges. Was "Stupid question", it Overture.

Silent on the corridors of power, foreign to the murderous soundbites on his colleagues and with a good dose of humour "british" - a more unknown aspects of the person - the man knows also show teeth when he wants to defend its field of intervention. Even if it is kept hushed, valve has not always been simple with Christine Lagarde in Bercy. "When you are in its sphere, it bites", reflects another Minister. "I am the communication mode as it gives me, nuance there. "If one wants to force report, I go". When a member of the Government has unveiled several journalists, the outline of the project just before pension reform the day on 27 May, the Minister of Labour Union mobilization took, he said, "a forthright and direct explanation" with the person.

After three years in the Government and the success of the reform of Berçy on which the Socialists are were broken nose, one that has inherited, after the regional elections, of one of the most exposed is entered, to 54 years, in the category of the first who. A small Flash of satisfaction in the eyes, Eric Woerth and let tell then dedramatized: "I have an ambition as anyone else, but I do not have a tension in the stomach thinking of the next poste.." Because it is not the febrile type and that caution is required when Paris bruisse a possible maintenance of François Fillon in Matignon until the end of the quinquennium.

(Photo: AFP)