It was just 5 p.m. this Friday, December 13, when the new Prime Minister, François Bayrou, crossed alone, one hand in his coat pocket, his gaze a little lost, across the courtyard of the Hôtel de Matignon. He is returning from the funeral of his friend Jean-Pierre Rioux, historian and member of MoDem since its creation, which took place a little earlier in the Saint-Jean de Montmartre church, in Paris.
Michel Barnier, who had the red carpet rolled out for his successor in the morning without knowing who would take it, or at what time, is waiting for the Béarnais, in a “strengthening fraîcheur”he will say in his brief handover speech. “I knew from the first day, September 5, that my government’s time was limited”said the Savoyard, victim of a motion of censure voted by “an unlikely alliance” between the New Popular Front and the National Rally (RN), but “politics cannot be reduced to a field of maneuvers, in a sort of private space from which citizens are excluded”he warns when passing the baton.
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