"Women leaders, how they dared": Valérie Pécresse, The love of risk "Women leaders, how they dared": Valérie Pécresse, L’amour du Risk<

The third structuring risk taking for its political career was its decision to get started, against everything, to conquer the Île-de-France region.A region that has been in the socialist party bastions for seventeen years.With 60% of voters identified on the left, it was classified as impregnable for the right.Lost by Édouard Balladur in 1998, she had remained in the hands of the socialist Jean-Paul Huchon until 2015. Jean-François Copé had not succeeded in winning it in 2004. Even Nicolas Sarkozy had given up trying her luck.

"I was said to me:" But why are you going to bother with this region? "I wanted to go because I wanted a beautiful fight.When I was elected deputy of the Yvelines, at the time the polls gave me losing, but I won.And no one retains that I won against General Morillon, a large figure sent by François Bayrou.»»

A bit like a competitor boosted by the pleasure brought to her by the game, she declares:

"This time, I wanted a fight that no man has ever won and that no man was able to win.I wanted to show that I was able to succeed what no other had managed to do.What man on the right would have won the Île-de-France region?»»

Valérie Pécresse did it twice, in 2015 and 2021. She got there by bringing the center left back.

“I am an assumed right woman, but I am open to themes that are not those of the classic right.Yes, the sovereign is for me a very strong right leg, probably more powerful than that of certain men.I am in the region where there are the most crimes, the most separatism, the most terrorism and urban ghettos and where the need for order is therefore very strong.I installed the regional council in Saint-Ouen, 300 meters from a republican reconquest area, a European crossroads of deal and fraud.I must also have a very strong left leg.A left leg that opens up to subjects of modernity, society-ecology, telework, integration, education, gender equality, the social “effective”: equal opportunities,The fight against fractures.»»

Valérie Pécresse continues her assumed comparison between female and male manners to direct:

“Women can be much more courageous than men in their exercise in power.Whether we look at Margaret Thatcher or Angela Merkel, the examples of feminine power are rather successful.When we reach this level of responsibility, the elective selection was such that necessarily women mark their function.Besides, it is often said that, during the COVID-19 crisis, the first women ministers were generally better.Because a woman who has really succeeded in her initiatory career, who has crossed all the stages, cannot manager in the same way as men.»»

Regarding leadership, precisely, Valérie Pécresse has a good method to take her troops.You could say that it exercises a form of management by maieutics.To convince her collaborators, she tries to give them birth themselves from the idea that she presses as being the right one.A form of conviction by the commitment of everyone who, according to her, could be similar to a feminine way of exercising power.

"The best way to convince is to suggest that the idea comes from others. If the idea comes from you only, you will find it difficult to gather around it. If you manage to ensure that the idea comes from others, that is to say that they lead to themselves at the idea you want to defend, there you have won. Because you take people to choose themselves. This is the most difficult: to make sure to convince your interlocutors to take the path that seems to you to be the best. They have to think the initiative comes from them. The real talent of a politician is that one: to manage to train behind him, to convince so much that those who are opposite think that it is their own idea. It's hard to achieve, but it works. You have to listen, influence by germinating ideas. Often, even, your initial idea is improving, because there are many more good ideas in several heads than in one. This is exactly what we managed to do during the university's autonomy reform. We wanted to reform two or three at the start to then train the others. But on hearing this, a very large number of universities have also wanted to become autonomous from the start. Finally, eighty-five universities asked for their autonomy. Even Nicolas Sarkozy was surprised. He thought we would only reform about ten. We have reformed nearly a hundred. »»

Then she adds smiling:

"If I tell you that I am a midwife, I will still tell me that I do gender stereotype.But yes, the real female leadership is to succeed in making their ideas carry by ambassadors who are themselves field relays.This is the most successful form of conviction.»»

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Is it for this reason that we do not necessarily distinguish the salient features of his personality and his way of being in power?Is the aura of mystery that envelops him the fruit of his skill to fade to germinate his ideas in the minds of others and convince them indirectly?When I ask her if it does not pose any difficulties to be disapproved of her ideas, she answers me, very pragmatic:

"It is not very serious to know who had the idea.The important thing is to implement it.You don't have to have an author ego.Wanting to claim the fatherhood of an idea is a somewhat male reflex.A good idea is always a hundred fathers, it is the defeat that is orphan.»»

Indeed, Valérie Pécresse is not known for her blood strokes, anger or blunders who, in the collective imagination, can help to forge a public figure.With her constant, equal character, her benevolent management, she does not give the media to build a clear image or lock it in a box:

"My management is different from that of a man.First, I never lose my calm.Because a woman who loses her calm is always suspected of being weak.This is my temperament.I also think that, for a man as for a woman, being angry constitutes a weakness, even if in general it is only criticized for women.I am quite equanity.I can get to get upset, but then you really have to come and get me or find myself in a very tired state.I can be energetic, but I never lose my composure.»»

We will all understand, Valérie Pécresse is extremely committed to matters of gender equality and representation of women in places of power. This commitment finds root in his personal experience: "I make politics because I was refused the job of my dreams while I was pregnant. Valérie Pécresse has always fed a very great passion for cinema. When she was on the Council of State, she was a rapporteur of the audiovisual subsection. After four years of good and loyal service, he was offered to take the number two post of the CNC, the National Center for Cinematography, "the job of her dreams", as she says. His interview with the director of the CNC at the time takes place to perfection: "You are the woman I need, this work is done for you, I want you to become my number two. Honored, Valérie Pécresse still wants to be perfectly honest.

"I said to him," There's just one thing I would like to share with you.I am three months pregnant.But don't worry, I'm a big worker, I will stay until the end, I will only take a very short maternity leave, etc. "At that time, my interlocutor begins to sweat with large drops.The interview ends.I have never been recalled for this position, never.And we didn't even take care to tell me that I would not choose me.I’ve just never heard of it again.The correlation is fairly quick to do.»»

Experience will be renewed a few weeks later, when the Secretary General of the Council of State calls him to propose to become a deputy secretary general of the Council of State.Post which will be refused this time loud and clear, always on the grounds that it is pregnant.Fortunately, ten days later, the president of the litigation section of the time summons it and offered to become a government commissioner.She also announces to him that she is pregnant, four months this time.Michel Gentot replied: "So, are you not going to let your pregnancy change something for your career?Tribute is paid to him.

His main regret?Not having dared earlier that she was really and imposing herself as she would have liked to face this type of situations.Valérie Pécresse concludes the interview, not without a touch of irony:

"I would not do politics today if I had not been refused the job of my dreams because I was pregnant ... In addition, he was a man on the left who refused it.This confirms that they would have done better to give it to me!».

Also read: "Women leaders, how they dared": Anne Lauvergeon, a woman of energy

Extract from Marie-Virginie Klein's book, "Women leaders, how they dared", published by Plon editions

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