The new tenant of Matignon could decide to remain at the head of his municipality. If the maneuver is legal, it would be a first since Alain Juppé in 1995. François Bayrou was the first to defend non-cumulation in 2007.
A trip this December 16 to Pau for the municipal council. Barely three days after his appointment to Matignon, François Bayrou will travel to his town in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques this Monday evening.
With one objective: probably to retain his mandate as mayor, a good landing strip in the event of early departure due to a motion of censure.
A first since 1995
On paper, nothing prevents a minister or a Prime Minister from remaining mayor. The law does prohibit combining a parliamentary mandate with a mayor's mandate, but it does not mention the case of a minister who is a member of an executive such as a town hall, a departmental or regional council.
The only prohibition for members of the government: combining their ministerial function with that of a mandate as senator and deputy. Very concretely, François Bayrou therefore has complete freedom to remain mayor of Pau if he wishes.
Politically, it is more complicated. No Prime Minister has remained mayor over the last three decades with the exception of Alain Juppé for Bordeaux. At the time, the councilor himself had followed in the footsteps of Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister and mayor of Paris from 1986 to 1988.
Since then, the situation has changed. Jean-Marc Ayrault in Nantes, Jean Castex in Prades, Édouard Philippe in Le Havre… All his predecessors who had a mandate as mayor decided to leave their chair to their deputy.
A champion of non-cumulation
The gesture would be all the more symbolic since François Bayrou was the first on the political scene to speak out in favor of non-cumulative mandates in 2007.
Same story for the ministers themselves in recent years. During the last municipal elections in 2020, Édouard Philippe then Prime Minister indicated that a minister “could not combine” his ministry “with the head of a local executive”.
With, however, an exception for Jean-Yves Le Drian, then Minister of Defense, who had been authorized to combine his local executive mandate – the presidency of the Brittany region – and his morocco.
Budget 2025 au menu
It is planned, according to the city of Pau website, that François Bayrou “opens the session (of the municipal council) with his news column and exchanges with elected officials on these themes”. Among the subjects on which municipal elected officials will work, we find in particular the budget for 2025 of the municipality.
Something to smile about as the centrist will have a lot to do to achieve a national budget in the coming weeks against a backdrop of a National Assembly more divided than ever.
