“The urgency is to rebuild a budget”

François-Noël Buffet (LR) remained in uncertainty until shortly before the new Bayrou government was formalized.

Stay or not stay? The former senator-mayor of Oullins was finally appointed as Minister to the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau. “I had rather signals that I would stay overseas but I was informed in the middle of the afternoon by the Prime Minister that he wanted me to be a minister reporting to the Minister of the Interior. I am not a delegate minister, it is the will of the Prime Minister. I have the same scope as Bruno Retailleau, with whom we will have to organize ourselves and share the work,” specifies the former senator-mayor of Oullins, keen to look back on these last three months spent at the 'Overseas.

“I just spent three wonderful months there with all the people I worked with. I would like to thank them. I really liked what I did, particularly in the face of the crises in New Caledonia, Martinique and Mayotte. I don't lose contact with them. The emergency in Mayotte is also managed from the Ministry of the Interior,” he insists without regret.

“We will have to work and convince”

“You know what it's like when you're fully invested, but that's the rule of the game and you learn to live with it. The Ministry of the Interior is a major, sovereign ministry,” recognizes “FNB”, known as a specialist in immigration as well as chairman of the law committee in the Senate. An itinerary which probably weighed in the choice of François Bayrou.

“I imagine the Prime Minister knows my background. There is the subject of immigration but also institutional reforms of communities which fall within the scope of the law committee. We are going to work on implementing all of this in the coming weeks,” François-Noël Buffet does not hide, considering that the first emergency is not there after the short-lived episode of the Barnier government and the, already, first criticism of that of François Bayrou.

“We always wonder about the reasons for the censorship. I think it was less about the substance than about a combination of opportunism. We find ourselves in the same situation: we will have to work and convince. The urgency is to rebuild a budget for France. We have a tight government with experienced, solid people. »