François-Noël Buffet, Chairman of the Senate Law Commission, appointed Minister for Overseas Territories

Senator François-Noël Buffet from the Rhône was appointed Minister in charge of Overseas Territories on Saturday, September 21. The President of the Senate Law Commission will report directly to Prime Minister Michel Barnier.

Republican Senator François-Noël Buffet was appointed Minister for Overseas Territories on Saturday, September 21, replacing Marie Guévenoux in the government of the new Prime Minister Michel Barnier, to whom he will report directly, announced the Secretary General of the Elysée, Alexis Kohler.

An early supporter of the former right-wing Prime Minister François Fillon, this heavyweight in the Senate claims to be a social Gaullist, with a line considered less harsh than that of his leader in the Upper House, Bruno Retailleau, who was appointed to the Interior.

A Fillon supporter from the very beginning, he had already been mentioned many times during previous reshuffles, with a profile considered more “constructive” than many of his colleagues on the right.

In the Senate since 2004

But François-Noël Buffet has remained attached to the Senate, where he has sat since 2004, and to his strategic position, which has seen him lead a number of key issues, on security and especially immigration.

He is notably the author of a respected report on the simplification of procedures in matters of migration, from which Gérald Darmanin had drawn extensively for his immigration bill adopted in the chaos at the end of 2023 and considerably toughened by the right.

He also coordinated important monitoring missions, on the riots of June 2023 as well as on the security failures surrounding the organization of the Champions League final at the Stade de France at the end of May 2022, an “inevitable fiasco” according to his report.

Ultra-sensitive files

A lawyer by profession and mayor of Oullins, in the suburbs of Lyon, from 1997 to 2017, François-Noël Buffet had already worked closely with the Macronist camp during the 2020 municipal elections: he had entered into an alliance with the former minister Gérard Collomb against the Greens, obtaining in the “deal” to recover the presidency of the metropolis… An agreement ultimately insufficient to win, in Lyon as well as in the community.

Replacing Macronist Marie Guévenoux, he takes over an ultra-sensitive portfolio peppered with emergencies, in New Caledonia – where thirteen people have died in violence since May – but also in Martinique – in the grip of tensions in recent days -, in Guadeloupe – affected by strikes by EDF workers – and in Mayotte.