Since the fall of the short-lived government of Michel Barnier, the only name that dominated the predictions was that of François Bayrou. Everything indicated that his appointment was obvious, even indisputably obvious. And yet until the last minute, the French witnessed a Hitchcockian soap opera, anger and slamming doors and last minute twists and turns between the president, Emmanuel Macron and the new tenant of Matignon, François Bayrou.
The French press is full of juicy details, undoubtedly distilled by the Bayrou team on the terms of this appointment. With changes in strategy between night and morning. The scenario resembles a film with twists and turns. Emmanuel Macron calls François Bayrou at 5:30 a.m. to inform him of his decision not to choose him as Prime Minister. Bayrou obtains a meeting with Macron at the Elysée at 8:30 a.m. During this interview Macron tries to give consolation prizes to Bayrou who not only refuses them but threatens the President to remove his group of deputies from the presidential majority if he is not chosen as Prime Minister.
Emmanuel Macron reverses course and appoints Bayrou. This operation, purposely disclosed in the press with its many details, is a hard blow for the President of the Republic whose arm has just been twisted by a political ally to offer himself the post of Prime Minister. On the other hand, it could increase Bayrou’s credibility with his political partners on the right and the left as the man who managed to secure his nomination rather than taking it as a gift from the prince.
Between Emmanuel Macron and François Bayrou, relations have always been marked by a mutual fascination. François Bayrou was one of the first politicians, alongside former Interior Minister Gérard Collomb, to believe in the lucky star of the current President of the Republic. With his Modem party, he helped create the ideological backbone of what is called Macronism.
But Bayrou’s admiration for Macron came up against the limits of political reality. Since Macron’s first term, Bayrou has been in the waiting room for the post of prime minister. Long before the choice of Édouard Phillipe, Jean Castex, Elisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal or Michel Barnier.
At each change of government, François Bayrou was present. Candidate…so much so that he began to embody in the eyes of the French the personality of the eternal unnamed Prime Minister. Today, it is by engaging in an operation of force with a touch of blackmail that he managed to realize his life’s dream, to be the head of government, the perfect incarnation of the center of political life. French.
Obviously, François Bayrou will have to face the great challenge of lasting in his position, he who like Miche Barnier, does not have an absolute majority in Parliament. But his appointment was received in good conditions which can augur a form of stability and continuity longer than that of Michel Barnier.
First, the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and Jordane Bardella made it known that it was not going to use the weapon of censorship unless this government crosses certain red lines. Then the Socialist Party, an important component of the new Left Front, highlighted its desire to adopt a posture of non-censorability. And if we add to these new elements two essential promises, one coming from the Presidency of the Republic not to dissolve the National Assembly until the end of the second term, that is to say in thirty months, and the other proposed by Bayrou himself not to resort to the famous 49.3 which castrates parliamentarians and prevents them from discussing and voting…all this new atmosphere prefigures a Bayrou government which can benefit from more time.
We still need to form this government. But this is another matter in which the two heads of the executive, Macron and Bayrou, have a strong chance of clashing…giving their relations a scent of cohabitation between a young President at the end of his career and an old Prime Minister ( 73 years old) to whom all dreams, including presidential ones, are now allowed.
