This is not the least of the difficulties

Operation "reassure the electorate of right". Visiting the show tonight "has you try" France 2, Brice Hortefeux will have an hour and a quarter to explain the bad figures for delinquency and recent succession of facts which have developed in difficulty the police forces. The Minister of the Interior will be confronted with the Communist Mayor of Saint-Ouen, Jacqueline Rouillon, who had called for additional numbers of police in the aftermath of a deadly exchange of fire, linked to drug trafficking in the city. He will also discuss with MP PS André Vallini, determined to denounce "the forward legislative leak" of the Government, "which no solution", particularly with regard to recidivism.

The Minister already ground its responses in recent weeks. Ensure that after an increase in ongoing since March, there in September "overall stabilization" of the delinquency to relativize the persistent growth of violence in persons ( 4). And continue to promise, as Nicolas Sarkozy had done before him, a legislative or regulatory response to every fact various profile, as the two orders in Council establishing new police files signed a week after the wrecks of showcases at Poitiers. His entourage does not new announcements, but the Minister will have to first convince that this method has not reached its limits.

Be on the offensive

"Security everywhere and for all", was it the intention of hammering. The Elysee expects him "pedagogy" to counter the possible disappointment of the electorate right and extreme right, on a subject that Nicolas Sarkozy had used to capture the voices of the FN and on which he had requested to be "tried in the results." "Security is the only policy on which there is sufficient seniority to make a balance." "If it is not on this ground, it will be a big problem", concerned a member of the leadership of the UMP.

The show will also figure of catch-up for Brice Hortefeux oral. "It that people discover new first France COP." "He wants to show that it is on the offensive", explains his entourage. Because the Minister was on the defensive since re-entry. Supposed to be a "clearance", there need to be rescued publicly by his colleagues in Government after its skid of Seignosse about activist UMP of Maghreb origin. The presidential irritation has fuité... What raise questions about its ability to one day be Prime Minister as he aims it.

A long friendship

"Alchemy does not work", says early October a Minister. While another, marri that Brice Hortefeux is not about to lead the battle of the March in Auvergne regional, asserted a month earlier: "one day, should anyone vote for him anyway."New critics both human enjoys a special status within the Sarkozy because of his long friendship with the head of the State and its influence on the election investitures: "Brice is more than Brice", note a parliamentarian.

The person concerned has heard the alarm and reactivated its networks. Member of the Oise Edouard Courtial him organizes now two appointments per month with Ministers, elected officials and executives of the party: breakfast with about 30 of the faithful and a meeting more broadly for which can vary the invitations and forge new links with parliamentarians. "My problem is to manage the overflow", provides the parliamentarian, who has scheduled the next meeting of Beauvau"November 3.

If he shows his muscles to respect his rivals, Brice Hortefeux knows that the real challenge will be to meet the head of State, who himself held the Place Beauvau for four years. This is not the least of the difficulties.