The voice of a former head of state. In the columns of the daily newspaper Ouest France dated Friday, September 13, François Hollande was questioned at length on the long political sequence that followed the legislative elections and which ended with the appointment of Michel Barnier as Prime Minister.
Initially, the former tenant of the Élysée between 2012 and 2017 indicated that he would censure the Barnier government, which is to be announced in the coming days. “What I already see in the first announcements around the composition of his future government suggests that he will move in the direction of an even more right-wing policy than the one conducted until now,” he justifies.
“Support without participation”
Then, François Hollande was also questioned about the fact that the new Prime Minister does not come from the ranks of the left.
“If I were President, I would have appointed a Prime Minister from the group that came out on top in the legislative elections, even if there was every reason to think that he would be censored,” he said.
Regarding the hypothesis of Bernard Cazeneuve as a potential Prime Minister, François Hollande believes that “‘support without participation’ could have been conceivable, or at the very least non-censorship.”
“I am convinced that a large part of the socialist group in the Assembly would not have censored it. I said this to Emmanuel Macron during the interview I had with him on September 2,” he further predicts.
According to him, Emmanuel Macron ultimately ruled out this hypothesis because he wanted “neither a Prime Minister in cohabitation, nor a Prime Minister who would call into question the pension reform, which would surely have been the case with Bernard Cazeneuve.”
“It was up to him to appoint a Prime Minister who corresponded to the vote of the French, and then to see if this Prime Minister could find a majority in the Assembly,” he finally criticises.
As for his personal case, he who has not ruled out being a candidate in the next presidential election says he is ready to “be as useful as possible.”
- BFMTV.com
