Nicolas Revel leaves the direction of Health Insurance to lead the cabinet of the new Prime Minister, Jean Castex. Two of the deconfinement pilots at Matignon to build the “world after”.
- Nicolas Revel, head of Health Insurance, has been appointed chief of staff to the new Prime Minister, Jean Castex
- It was he who set up the “zero charge rest” and promoted the development of telemedicine
- His appointment alongside Jean Castex illustrates the inflection of the five-year term after the health crisis
Nicolas Revel and Emmanuel Macron would they be born under the same star? The closeness of the two men is known and striking. To the point that their training as enarques and their commitment to public action led them to share the same function, that of deputy secretary general of the presidency under François Hollande. To clearly take the taste of working together, to the point that the head of state, once elected in 2017, would have sought to impose his former alter-ego on his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, to lead his cabinet. It took Nicolas Revel – who in 2018 declined the proposal to become Minister of the Interior after the departure of Gérard Collomb – three years of patience: here he is since July 3 alongside Jean Castex, chief of staff of the new Matignon tenant just appointed.
During these three years, the destinies of Emmanuel Macron and Nicolas Revel also illustrate a certain form of proximity. The first, brilliant winner of the 2017 presidential election, had a successful start to his mandate in his desire to change France. The second, Director General of Health Insurance since 2014, has, in four years, almost overcome the historic deficit of Social Security, bringing his accounts to a level (- 1.2 billion euros) that we had not seen this close to equilibrium for decades.
“Yellow vests” and health crisis
Successes undermined, for both of them, by two successive “historic” crises, that of the “yellow vests” and that of the coronavirus. Result, a popularity at half mast and a complicated economic and social situation for Emmanuel Macron, a Social Security whose deficit has again soared following the concessions granted to calm the social crisis and the cost of the health crisis for Nicolas Revel.
It is therefore not surprising to see the two men getting closer within the framework of the change of government: both of them surely need and probably want to “turn the page” and bounce back in the construction of the “world of after”.
“I always lead the negotiations in the hope of an agreement”
A construction that will require a vision of what this post-coronavirus world could be, and the need, two years before the end of the presidential term, to share it. Nicolas Revel demonstrated at the head of Health Insurance that he was capable of achieving his objectives: convinced of the need to improve access to care in the context of unfavorable medical demographics, he managed to install the “rest at zero charge”, to appease the relationship with the health professions and to promote the development of telemedicine, the usefulness of which has just been demonstrated by the health crisis as an element of the care pathway.
Successes that have not disturbed the natural discretion — “he has no narcissistic flaws, nor ego problems”, said recently of him in an interview with the Obs Gaspar Gantzer, his former colleague at the Elysée – of this 54-year-old man, father of three children, son of the academician Jean-François Revel and the journalist Nathalie Sarraute and half-brother of the monk Matthieu Ricard. On the other hand, he has lost none of his enthusiasm or his determination. “I always lead the negotiations in the hope of an agreement”, confided a few months ago the boss of the CNAM to journalists from Social Information. It was said with a smile, but those who are used to these discussions speak of an interlocutor “charming but daunting”as told by Jean-Paul Hamon, president of the Federation of Doctors of France.
The importance of health and social problems
“He managed the tour de force of having the medical convention signed by all the representative doctors’ unions!”adds Jean-Paul Ortiz, president of the Confederation of French medical unions, who evokes a man “rigorous, with which you can build things”. He is delighted with this double choice which places Matignon Jean Castex and Nicolas Revel, “two men who are well versed in health issues”. “This shows the inflection given by Emmanuel Macron for this new phase of his five-year term which enshrines the importance of health and social problems”adds the boss of the CSMF.
It is indeed two pilots of a “deconfinement” so far rather successful – Nicolas Revel even managed to extinguish very quickly the pseudo-controversy on the affair of the case-contacts and the fears of attacks on individual freedoms – who will now lead government action. A tandem that cannot ignore that to build the “next world”, it will be more useful to learn the lessons of a crisis that has made the French skeptical about the effectiveness of public action than to want to forget too quickly.
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