François Baroin, the new French economy minister

A political choice, first of all. It is the one just accomplished by Nicolas Sarkozy, who had to replace Christine Lagarde, Minister of Economy and Finance, who was leaving for Washington, to become general manager of the International Monetary Fund. His place will be filled by François Baroin, currently head of the budget department. Not a super technician like Lagarde. With much less impeccable English (it's an understatement) than Lagarde's. But a political figure with a certain charisma, who knows how to speak well on television, reassuring the middle class of his country. Above all, Baroin is the indispensable trait d'union with the right wing of his party, the UMP, which Sarkozy needs in view of the 2012 presidential elections. Now that's low in the polls. 46 years old (but looks much younger), nicknamed "Harry Potter" by his compatriots precisely because of his boyish air and the glasses he always wears on his nose, Baroin does not have any diploma from the grande école in his pocket, which in France, on one level, it can be a serious handicap. On the other hand, his father, Michel Baroin, was an important manager in various companies and Grand Maitre du Grand Orient de France: in short, at the top of French Freemasonry. He died suddenly in a plane crash. And so Jacques Chirac, a friend of the family, took him under his protection. François, who for lack of anything else had begun to be a journalist, was soon co-opted by him into politics. Even today Baroin is considered a godson of Chirac, Sarkozy's latent enemy. Harry Potter is tied hand and foot to the Gaullist right, to the more traditional part of the UMP, the centre-right party, the same as the current president. For this reason, immediately after his election in 2007, Sarkozy, who instead advocated opening to the left, immediately set aside that smiling little friend of the "old man". It only returned to the limelight in March 2010, when by now the President, aware that he could not win again in 2012 without the tireless support of the UMP, resurrected some «chiraquiens». Harry Potter, on the occasion, became Budget Minister. Since then he has fought for a certain rigor in the accounts, busted due to the crisis (and Sarkozy's mega-projects). The public deficit at the end of 2010 was around 7,1%. Debt, on the other hand, has risen to 82,3%, still low compared to other countries, but growing dangerously. Baroin, already as Minister of Blancio, aimed to return to 3% at the end of 2013. Surely the same battle will continue now. But that's not why Sarkozy chose him to replace Lagarde. Baroin, above all, is someone who shows up well in the soporific debates on French TV. He is the "ideal son-in-law" dreamed of by many French petit bourgeois. It's reassuring compared to the Martine Aubry-style pure and hard left. Separated, with three children, he was the man of Marie Drucker, a television star journalist. And now he lives with the actress Michèle Laroque. That too appeals to the French petit bourgeois. Yes, Baroin is a vote taker.