High voltage re-entry for the MoDem. The seaside town of Guidel (Morbihan) has been hosting the summer universities of the party since Friday and until Sunday, still divided over its participation in the government but held by François Bayrou, who supports the Barnier team while offering a platform to Bernard Cazeneuve.
A relatively unusual fact: with the exception, of course, of the three party ministers, no member of the government, certainly newly formed, was announced to Guidel.
“With each reshuffle, the MoDem screams”
“We were on national unity and we are moving towards the union of the rights,” fumes a MoDem parliamentarian, particularly angry against the composition of the government team. The presence of three comrades, two of whom hold prestigious positions? “Vicious,” continues this source. “They bought two important personalities from our region who could not refuse to join the government: Jean-Noël Barrot at the Quai d’Orsay and Geneviève Darrieussecq at Health. It was the job of their lives! »
At Renaissance, where the debate is also lively, we joke about the procrastination of the centrist ally. “With each government reshuffle, the MoDem shouts, the MoDem says “be careful, that doesn’t satisfy us in terms of political positioning”. There is a crisis meeting […] and in the end, everything goes back to normal, and there is an additional State Secretariat,” says a deputy.
A growing internal sling
Already in February, François Bayrou had bluntly announced that he would not join Gabriel Attal’s government. Faced with a fait accompli, his troops were moderately appreciative. The deputy Jean-Louis Bourlanges had split a text of disagreement. But in finethe MoDem did not emerge as a loser from the reshuffle.
Same sort of scene last week, but the atmosphere became tense. Faced with Michel Barnier’s first lists, “the majority of the group [à l’Assemblée] was for non-participation,” according to a MoDem executive. But François Bayrou was in favor of it.
How, essentially pleaded the founder of the party, preach national unity, reproach the socialists for not participating in the government and not wanting to go there yourself because it would lean too far to the right? Defensible political strategy, but harsh speech to the ears of many members of the MoDem, whose boss has been criticizing “RPR governments” for several decades.
Another leader, rather unfavorable to participation, expressed his fears of seeing the MoDem take responsibility for the failure of the Barnier solution, the work of Emmanuel Macron. It is therefore “above all, out of a sense of duty” that the MoDem approved its participation in the government, wrote Marc Fesneau to his 35 fellow deputies re-elected like him after the dissolution.
No “expected answers”
But the party has “not had at this stage the expected answers” on two important issues, insists Marc Fesneau: “the future of the bill on the end of life” – a subject brought up among others by the MoDem deputy Olivier Falorni – and of course proportional representation in the Assembly, which the MoDem has been demanding for years.
“In the absence of a government pact, it will ultimately be decided by the National Assembly,” insists Marc Fesneau, who also warns of the MoDem’s “demand for justice” in budgetary matters.
Bayrou “always supported the Cazeneuve hypothesis”
With a first demonstration on Sunday in Guidel: while Gérald Darmanin invites the other tenors of the Macronist camp to Tourcoing, the MoDem invites Bernard Cazeneuve to Brittany. Enough to fuel the regrets of a significant part of the former majority, who signed with both hands for the arrival of the former socialist at Matignon and already find themselves in pronounced disagreement with the Barnier government.
François Bayrou “has always supported the Cazeneuve hypothesis”, explains a socialist deputy. But “as soon as it was Barnier, an old acquaintance, he negotiated as best he could”. And then “when he sees an RPR come back, he says to himself: if Barnier comes back, everything is possible for me”.
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