We continue to get lost in conjectures about the reasons which governed the choice of François Bayrou as Prime Minister. According to Roselyne Bachelot (no comment), the version of blackmail would be a set-up, with Macron’s agreement, to give credit to François Bayrou. Nothing is less certain. In terms of credit, on the other hand, it is not so much political credibility as financial solidity that François Bayrou would need. And we are not talking about France’s debt, but that of the city of Pau, which he has led for ten years.
We know that after his appointment, and after his disastrous performance during the press conference which followed Hurricane Chido in Mayotte, the Prime Minister plunged into a Falcone of the Republic to go straight away… to the municipal council of Pau. An hour’s plane ride at state expense is expensive, in a situation like ours, when the journey between Paris and Pau takes four hours. And then, what’s the point of annoying the French who run on diesel when you have a quick trip with a big plane that pollutes? Let’s move on.
At the municipal council, an elected official remarked to him – in a rather acidic and ill-mannered manner, but with a certain common sense – about the incongruity of his presence. François Bayrou got away with a stringy explanation: he would have been criticized for not having remained connected to the province if he had not been present. It will be objected that Henry IV, his model, never set foot in his beloved city of Pau again after his coronation, even if he never stopped giving directives for the development of his castle and he inquired about the progress of the work. We imagine that this effort cost him, but putting the interests of the country before personal considerations, even at the cost of nostalgic heartbreak, is probably what we call statecraft.
And now, we learn that the debt of the city of Pau has almost doubled since he took the reins: from 60 to 110 million euros, or a debt of 1,440 euros per inhabitant. This is not much better for the Pau Béarn Pyrénées community of communes, which François Bayrou also chairs (we will remember that he is for the accumulation of mandates…), whose debt increased from 124.4, in 2017, to 187.5 million euros, in 2023. Of course, as with fat, there is good debt and bad debt: communities go into debt to invest, not to pay civil servants, unlike the State. But still…
The near future of the brand new Prime Minister should consist, as a priority, of cleaning up public finances. Obviously, the task is Herculean and we won’t hold it against him for not resolving everything in a year – or less… Bayrou is not Javier Milei: he uses a wooden tongue better than a chainsaw. But still. Entrusting the government of the country to a man who, on the scale of a peaceful provincial town, has doubled the public debt in ten years, is a little ironic. We know that nothing suffocates Emmanuel Macron, neither shame, nor scandals, nor contradiction or absurdity. He will always come away – he believes – with elements of language worthy of a “toxic relationship”. It will be the fault of the French. For the sake of form, we nevertheless wish François Bayrou good luck. And we will advise him, despite his taste for aviation (we are on the land of the Wright brothers, after all), to move into a TGV the next time he wants to return to his land.
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