Long labeled “Mr. Covid”, Olivier Véran, Emmanuel Macron’s early support, will once again become a familiar figure for the French as government spokesperson.

“Our responsibility is to make our action audible” and “I am committed to speaking the truth, to speaking fairly”, launched the ex-socialist, experienced in TV sets and in contests with the opposition, during Monday handover with Olivia Grégoire.

His time at the Ministry of Relations with Parliament, in the Borne I government, was brief. He retains the portfolio of “Democratic Renewal”, as Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister.

“Democracy will no longer live only during the big electoral ballots”, he also hoped on Monday, hoping “that the requirement of dialogue and consensus can irrigate this five-year term” and proclaiming himself “spokesman of the French “.

Re-elected MP for Isère in June, he was perceived by some as counter-employment in Relations with Parliament. A member of the majority recognizes that after “a little rough relations” during the health crisis, “the oppositions have not shown in recent weeks that they are ready to discuss calmly with him”.

At 42, Olivier Véran has established himself as a key piece of government. Only a decade but already light years from the young deputy elected in 2012, who did not intend to serve more than one or two terms.

Even: the political animal was already pointing in the guise of the neurologist, noticed in 2007 during a strike at the Grenoble University Hospital and immediately became spokesperson for the national union of interns.

“He is clear in his expression, enthusiastic, has charisma and a good sense of communication”, then judged the local socialist deputy Geneviève Fioraso, who made him his deputy before being appointed to higher education under François Hollande.

Son of an engineer and an English teacher, nursing assistant in Ehpad at the start of his studies, saying he had “the heart on the left” although “never encarded” before, he defends the shooting rooms at the Palais Bourbon , defends the medical interim. He ends up obtaining a place of rapporteur on the Health law of Marisol Touraine, which allows him to distinguish himself by his amendments against the anorexia of models.

Forced to return the seat to its incumbent in 2015, he approached the Minister of the Economy Emmanuel Macron, and joined the following year En Marche! before becoming the health referent of the presidential candidate.

The doors of the ministry finally open for him in 2020, when Ms. Buzyn must replace Benjamin Griveaux in disaster in a race for mayor of Paris which turns into a fiasco.

Mr. Véran is illustrated from the outset by a simple graphic, drawn live on a news channel to explain that the objective is to “flatten the curve” of the virus in order to avoid saturation of the intensive care units.

But the epidemic is racing and the executive is entangled in day-to-day management studded with controversy: masks, certificates, deconfinement, tests, reconfinement, vaccination …

His face becomes known to everyone, but the exercise reduces him to the role of Covid minister. Without a law in his name, he can still be proud of the creation of a fifth branch of Social Security and the “historic” wage increases of the “Ségur de la santé”.

An amateur pianist in his spare time, the minister was eager to finally change his score.

Born in the capital of Dauphiné, the Sciences Po graduate often returns there to see his two children, who stayed with his ex-wife, an obstetrician-gynecologist.

An almost ordinary life, was not the pending investigation of the Court of Justice of the Republic into the management of the Covid.

04/07/2022 14:04:13 –         Paris (AFP) –         © 2022 AFP