Criticized from all sides for having chosen to go to Pau in the middle of the crisis in Mayotte, François Bayrou promised Tuesday to the deputies not to leave any challenge “unanswered”, but without advancing on his solutions while waiting to form a government ” in the days to come.”
The new Prime Minister, who continues consultations with political forces to constitute his team, took stock at midday with Emmanuel Macron during more than an hour of one-on-one time at the Elysée. He must speak with him again in the evening, according to those around him.
Objective, according to Marc Fesneau, the head of the MoDem deputies: to evoke a “start-up architecture” for his government that François Bayrou said he wanted to compose “in the coming days”, by the end of the week.
His intention is to present a tight team of around 25 ministers with personalities from the left, center and right, according to parliamentary sources, before delivering his general policy declaration to Parliament on January 14.
In the meantime, he answered questions from the National Assembly for the first time. And he was questioned about his choice to go, the day before, to chair the municipal council of his city of Pau, of which he intends to remain mayor, and to only attend by videoconference a crisis meeting in Mayotte, devastated by the passage of Cyclone Chido.
“You should not have gone to Pau to retain a mandate, but to the crisis meeting at the Élysée to assume your new role,” launched the head of the La France insoumise deputies, Mathilde Panot, when her socialist counterpart , Boris Vallaud, criticized him for having also taken advantage of it to promote “cumulative mandates”.
In the morning, the President of the Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, even said that she would have “preferred that the Prime Minister, instead of taking a plane to Pau, took the plane to Mamoudzou”, the capital from Mayotte.
François Bayrou justified himself by invoking the need not to “separate the province and the circle of powers in Paris”, one of his hobby horses. “Pau is in France (…) I was also in my place as a citizen,” he pleaded.
He also said he shared the seriousness of the national representation on the tragedy of Mayotte, deploring in passing that there had not been a “development model” adopted for the archipelago “much earlier”.
Beyond that, the new tenant of Matignon was bombarded with questions about how he intends to climb this “Himalaya” of challenges that he mentioned when he took office on Friday.
For the National Rally, Laure Lavalette drew up a list of priorities, asking in particular for the vote on an “agricultural emergency law” before the end of the year.
The socialist Boris Vallaud sent him a “solemn republican warning”, demanding answers on the budget, pensions, purchasing power and even public services. “Will you be open to compromise, willing to do anything other than defend, whatever the cost, Emmanuel Macron’s record?” he asked.
François Bayrou, proclaiming his “respect” for all deputies whatever their political camp, refused to detail his solutions.
“I will not hide anything, I will leave nothing untreated and unanswered,” he limited himself to responding. “All the problems that you have indicated which are linked to public spending, which are linked to the fractures in French society, I will try to resolve them (…) taking into account each of the groups”, he promised .
Likewise, he pledged not to leave “the budgetary situation unanswered”, while the adoption of a finance law for 2025 has been dormant since the censure of his predecessor Michel Barnier.
“I never believed that the answer to all the country’s problems was found in taxation,” he only clarified, also evoking the necessary “savings”, but without quantifying his intentions.
At the same time, consultations with political forces, which began on Monday, continued in Matignon.
The president of the Horizons deputies, Laurent Marcangeli, pleaded for “stability” with the Prime Minister.
The leaders of the Ecologists were much more pessimistic, believing that Mr. Bayrou was already “little by little paving the way to his own censorship”.
As for Laurent Wauquiez, the leader of the Les Républicains deputies, received on Monday, he requested a new meeting on Tuesday with the head of government, whose project is still “too vague” in his eyes.
