In 2017, François Bayrou’s endorsement was a turning point in the presidential campaign that brought Emmanuel Macron to power. The support of Bayrou and that of Gérard Collomb, socialist mayor of Lyon, two veterans of French politics, gave credibility to the young former Minister of Economy of François Hollande, who was advancing in leaps and bounds towards the Elysée with a speech that tried to seduce him. time to social democratic and center-right voters.
The “overcoming of the right-left fracture” that Emmanuel Macron proclaimed in 2017 was one of the great battles of Bayrou’s political career, who by then had already run for president three times. “It is a strange thing, President of the Republic. You’re not old enough, but that doesn’t matter,” Bayrou then told Macron, in an aside between the two captured by the documentary cameras. Emmanuel Macron, the secrets of victory. “If you can succeed where I have failed, I will help you,” he then told her.
Recently elected, President Macron rewarded Collomb’s support with the Ministry of the Interior and Bayrou’s with the Ministry of Justice. That decision to join the presidential coalition also allowed him to give new impetus to the party he presided over, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), which at that time had languished to the point of almost disappearing. In the 2017 legislative elections that followed the presidential election, MoDem, which in 2012 had not won any deputies, won 47 seats.
However, recently appointed head of Justice and in charge of drafting a law on the moralization of political life, Bayrou was forced to resign after his indictment in a case of misappropriation of European Parliament funds. A trial regarding parliamentary assistants similar to the one currently being carried out by Marine Le Pen and her party, although on a different scale: in the case of the MoDem party, the lawyers of the European Parliament estimated the loss of public funds at 293,000 euros, in that of Le Pen’s estimate rises to 6.8 million euros.
Refusal to enter the Government
Several members of MoDem were convicted, but Bayrou was acquitted in the first instance last February. The 11th chamber of correction in Paris found there was insufficient evidence that he was personally involved in a scheme to pay party employees from funds allocated to MEPs’ parliamentary assistants. “It is the end of a seven-year nightmare,” Bayrou declared then. In reality, the prosecution appealed the decision and the court has yet to rule on that appeal.
In any case, after his acquittal in the first instance, at the beginning of the year his name was mentioned to occupy a new ministerial portfolio. However, Bayrou surprised by then announcing to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that “he would not join the Government” due to “a profound disagreement on the policy to be followed” with the president. He added that there were two areas that deserved total commitment: the Ministry of Education and “the abyss that has opened between the provinces and Paris. And we have not been able to reach an agreement on these two points.”
Despite being one of Macron’s first supporters and one of the most influential barons in the presidential coalition, his relations with the head of state have not always been easy. The slamming of the door on the Government in February was proof of this. And on the morning of his appointment as prime minister, both met for almost two hours at the Elysée, in a conversation that several French media described as “tense.”
On Friday the newspaper Le Monde He went further and stated that in the morning Macron had informed Bayrou that he would not be prime minister, and offered him to be “number two” in an Executive chaired by his party’s deputy, Roland Lescure. According to this version, Bayrou issued an ultimatum to the head of state: either he appointed him prime minister or he left the coalition.
Dialogue with other forces
François Bayrou belongs to the same generation as Michel Barnier (both are 73 years old) and, like his predecessor, finds himself in a very fragile situation in the face of a divided Assembly in which it is difficult to secure lasting support to move forward texts.
It has the advantage that, after Barnier’s fall, there are more parties willing to reach compromises to avoid prolonging instability. However, in the current state of French politics and given the deterioration of the situation of public finances, the preparation of budgets that have the approval of political parties of very different ideologies seems extremely difficult. Furthermore, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise has already announced a motion of censure in the future Government, which once again leaves it lame and dependent on the extreme right of Marine Le Pen.
In a recent documentary France TV Regarding the dissolution, Bayrou advocated a “broad and central” government, with “reformists, left, center and right, excluding the extremes” to leave the current bloc.
The new prime minister can also claim a cordial relationship with a part of the Socialist Party. His disagreements with Nicolas Sarkozy led him to publicly support François Hollande in the 2012 election. “François Bayrou would be a good prime minister. He has all the qualities for it,” said the socialist Bernard Cazeneuve a few days ago.
That decision to support Hollande earned him tenacious resentment from Sarkozy and those around him. These days, several French media reported that the former president had contacted Emmanuel Macron and activated his influence networks to try to block Bayrou’s arrival in Matignon. Finally, without success.
Despite his ideological distance from the extreme right and the fact that Emmanuel Macron has excluded Marine Le Pen’s party from the negotiations, Bayrou has an asset in possible talks with the extreme right leader: both agree on an electoral reform that introduce a part of proportional scrutiny into the French system.
Furthermore, the president of MoDem has always defended the need to respect in the institutions a party that receives the support of almost a third of voters. “For me, democracy means pluralism and, therefore, alliance. In a pluralistic political life, everyone is legitimate. The center guarantees the survival of the ideas of others,” he has defended on several occasions.
Mayor of Pau
Mayor of the city of Pau, in the Béarn department, since 2014, Bayrou often remembers that his father was a farmer in the region. He was a professor of Literature and Classics after passing the prestigious exam Aggregation of lettersbefore focusing on politics. The new prime minister can claim a link with the non-urban France that Emmanuel Macron has never managed to build. In addition, he speaks Béarnaise and defends the protection of regional languages, often ignored by the French State.
Since the 70s he has participated in different centrist formations and was part of the generation that tried to take up the baton of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. In the 90s he participated in several conservative governments as Minister of Education, under the presidency of Jacques Chirac. In 2002 he ran for president for the first time. In 2007 he achieved his best result, being third with 18% of the votes only behind Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande.
From there Bayrou and his party entered a decade of decline, ignored by the socialists despite announcing that he would vote for Hollande and hated by a part of the right that blamed him for Sarkozy’s defeat. Until his support for Emmanuel Macron in 2017 allowed his long political career to enter a phase that this Friday brought him to the head of Government.
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