when Simone Veil settled scores with François Bayrou

Following the overthrow of Michel Barnier by the National Assembly on December 4, François Bayrou succeeded him. Appointed Prime Minister by Emmanuel Macron, the president of MoDem (and former member of the UDF, Union for French Democracy) has established himself, in nearly forty years, as one of the major figures in French politics. However, over the course of his long career, he has not only made friends, even within the center. In 2007, the former Minister of Health, Simone Veil, settled scores with her colleague in the columns of Monde.

That same year, about a month before the presidential elections, the one who supported the candidate Nicolas Sarkozy (of the UMP party) had strongly criticized his rival, who was also running for Matignon. “Bayrou, it’s worse than anything“, she declared. A respected figure in politics, particularly for her fight for women’s rights, she painted the portrait of a man she considered perfidious and opportunistic. “I know everything about his past and his successive betrayals“, she said, referring to François Bayrou’s phone call to Jacques Chirac the day after his qualification for the first round of the 1995 presidential election, ahead of outgoing president Édouard Balladur. Simone Veil thus judged “indecent to rush like this» to support the competitor of the one who had nevertheless appointed her Minister of Education.

“He said he didn’t care.”

Appointed to this position from 1993 to 1997, François Bayrou also announced during his first year, a project to reform the Falloux law on public education. THE Figaro Student explains that it was a question of “uncapping local authority subsidies for the benefit of private schools” sparking “a major protest movement in public education, before being canceled by the Constitutional Council”. At this time, Simone Veil confronted him. “He replied that he didn’t care, that he wanted to be able to put his children in private care. Above all, he put a million people on the streets“, she added.

Finally, the question of wearing the veil at school was debated in the 1990s. Still not legally resolved, François Bayrou, still Minister of National Education, published a circular in 1994 aimed at regulating the wearing of religious symbols at school. school, particularly targeting the Islamic headscarf. An initiative which had not been to the taste of Simone Veil, who criticized him for not having listened to her advice to resolve the situation as best as possible. “There again, he didn’t want to do anything and he didn’t resolve anything», she explained again to Monde in 2007. Note that the law prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public establishments will finally be adopted in 2004, putting an end to these debates.