François Bayrou declares himself in favor of a resumption of the debate on the question

Should we call François Bayrou “Mr. Mayor or Mr. Prime Minister” ? To this question which was asked to him, Monday, December 16, by a journalist, the new tenant of Matignon, who remains the city councilor of Pau, said, with a smile, that he preferred the first option because “it’s a more durable title”.

Mr. Bayrou then left the municipal council of the city of Pyrénées-Atlantique, during which he had relaunched the debate on the re-authorization of the accumulation of mandates for parliamentarians, for which he said he was in favor

“We made a mistake in [rendant] incompatible local and national responsibilities, it is an error (…) For members of the government, it is authorized, for parliamentarians, no. I think this debate needs to be resumed”declared Mr. Bayrou during the session, specifying that he would ask this question in his general policy speech.

“I can imagine it without the addition of compensation”he then added to the press. “I will suggest to future members of my government to keep their mandates and I will suggest to others [d’avoir] a small antenna on the ground »said Mr. Bayrou again in front of the elected representatives of Pau.

He had already remained mayor during his mandate in justice in 2017

The head of government justified his position “by the rupture between the base of French society (…) and those in power”ce “wall of glass” who nourishes “a deep distrust of the political world, all parties combined”. “We must re-root political responsibilities, in villages, neighborhoods, cities”he insisted, citing the examples of Pierre Mauroy in Lille, Gaston Defferre in Marseille, Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Alain Juppé in Bordeaux, or even Jacques Chirac in Paris and Corrèze.

François Bayrou, who will give a general delegation to his first deputy, had already retained his mandate as mayor when he was briefly minister of justice in 2017. The law does not prohibit a member of the government from remaining mayor, only parliamentarians. However, many of his predecessors at Matignon have abandoned their position as first councillor, such as recently Jean Castex in 2020 or Édouard Philippe in 2017.

The Pau opposition criticized the choice of Mr. Bayrou, believing that it was not “irreplaceable” in Pau. “Our city needs a mayor who is present every day and involved in issues”launched the socialist Jérôme Marbot, while the ecologist Jean-François Blanco criticized him for his participation in the municipal council, believing that his place “was in Paris or Mayotte” – the French overseas department having suffered the devastating passage of a cyclone – and that a local mandate “must not be a basis for fallback”.