This Friday, Emmanuel Macron chose François Bayrou as new Prime Minister. Beyond the wealth of his political experience, the centrist forms a solid couple with his wife, Élisabeth, to whom he said “yes” 53 years ago.
It was love at first sight more than half a century ago. This Friday, December 13, the president of MoDem, François Bayrou, was appointed to succeed Michel Barnier, whose government was overthrown by a motion of censure. Enough to make Élisabeth proud, his partner and mother of his six children, whom he married in 1971.
Élisabeth Bayrou, born Élisabeth Perlant, met the president of MoDem at the University of Bordeaux, when they were both students. On his website a few years ago, the latter spoke of his meeting with “Babeth”, the nickname he gives to his dear and tender one.
A marriage after five months of relationship
“Babeth was going to the university restaurant. I saw it and there it was,” he wrote then. In the book “Bayrou l’obstiné” by Rodolphe Geisler, published in 2012 by Plon, the author gave more details about the meeting: “What (François Bayrou) remembers is first of all his legs, straight, beautiful fine attachments. Then his face. (He) said to himself: ‘This girl, she is for me’”, it is detailed in the biography of the unsuccessful candidate in the presidential elections of 2002, 2007 and 2012.
It was only five months after falling in love at first sight that the two lovers said “yes” to each other in front of the mayor. A decision that could have been considered premature, but which nevertheless bore fruit. Indeed, their marriage did not distance the two spouses from their professional ambitions. Both graduated from university, pursued the same professional path and became professors of literature.
A discreet wife
If François Bayrou subsequently decided to enter politics, his partner instead chose to remain more discreet. As Rodolphe Geisler wrote in “Bayrou l’obstiné”, Élisabeth is very attached to “her freedom”. “She hates worldliness. Since her husband became deputy for Pau, (…) Babeth has always, with the same constancy, refused to go to a dinner of notables in town. However, on the occasion of the Amiens convention in 2001, she decided to make an exception, by going on stage to show her support for her husband, who had become the official candidate of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) in the 2002 presidential election.
From their union six children were born: Hélène, Marie, Dominique, Calixte, Agnès and André. A large family, to whom the mother gave priority after the birth of her third, Dominique, putting an end to her teaching career. Often far from her husband, who is frequently on business trips, she communicates regularly with him from their large property located in Bordères, a small town of less than 700 inhabitants near Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantique).
A woman attached to her independence
Élisabeth Bayrou appreciates her tranquility and experiences the distance that separates her from her husband quite well. “My wife is deeply idealistic. She often considers the political world to be light and lacking in depth. She thinks it feels like the playground too often. But the political question interests him. We discuss it every day,” explained the new tenant of Matignon to our colleagues at Gala in 2012, assuring that the distance was “an asset” for the survival of his couple.
“The fact that I had to live 850 km from home for half the week was not a handicap. Without that, (Elisabeth) would perhaps not have put up with me for long,” he joked, quite honestly.
François Bayrou had even confided that he called his wife a little too often, according to the latter, who never understood the reason why her husband called him “four or five times a day, just like that, to avoid anything say”.
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