After a week of hesitation at the top of the state, the centrist issued a surprise statement on Wednesday.
François Bayrou put an end to the suspense. Relaxed on Monday in the affair of the parliamentary assistants of MoDem MEPs (ex-UDF), the mayor of Pau has since increased the pressure to return to the government. Ideally, in a large ministry tailor-made for him, without closing the door to National Education, where he would have replaced Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, weakened by repeated controversies since her appointment. Finally, the High Commissioner for Planning issued a press release to AFP on Wednesday evening to announce that he “ would not enter the government “, for lack of “deep agreement on the policy to follow “.
“There were two areas that seemed to me to deserve full commitment: the Ministry of Education, which today is experiencing a crisis of confidence that comes from afar and which I believed could be corrected. But numerous discussions have led me to conclude that there is a difference in approach on the method to follow which seems prohibitive to me. the centrist said. “The second subject is the gulf that has widened between the province and Paris, all the crises in regional planning and the now increasingly greater distance between citizens and public action. We could not find agreement on these two points », he continued, saying he had also declined the Ministry of the Armed Forces, occupied today by Sébastien Lecornu.
Phlegm staged
It was around 6 p.m. that François Bayrou told his closest friends. A little earlier, his interview with Gabriel Attal went badly, according to several sources. “This is not a technical disagreement, but a political disagreement », Supports someone close to François Bayrou. On Education, “he considered that we must reform with the teachers, and not against the teachers “. It’s decided: he will not join the government.
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Hostile from the start to the promotion of Gabriel Attal to Matignon, François Bayrou had made no secret of his reservations on the “RPR government » formed by the young prime minister. To the point of threatening at the time to enter into a “form of resistance” internal. Which is precisely the path he seemed to take on Wednesday evening, by speaking out in a resounding manner himself. Concomitantly with this surprise intervention, Emmanuel Macron gathered part of his close guard at the Élysée for yet another meeting in order to finalize the names of the fifteen ministers supposed to join the 14 members already in office.
This is how it is, and has been since day one: the more impatient his camp becomes, the less hurried Emmanuel Macron is. To the point of displaying his phlegm to better conceal his hesitations. Outgoing ministers uncertain about their fate? Their advisors unemployed for more than a month? Majority pressure? The combined insistence of the allies, with Édouard Philippe on one side and François Bayrou on the other, he who has been preparing his return to the government since his acquittal on Monday in the affair of the European parliamentary assistants? “The president doesn’t care at all!», laughs one of his interlocutors.
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This does not prevent him from unfolding his official agenda either. After the morning Council of Ministers, Wednesday was a day marked by emotion and seriousness, with the tribute paid in the Cour des Invalides to the French victims of the attacks committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7 . Friday, the Head of State must go to the National School of Magistrates, in Bordeaux, on the occasion of the swearing-in of the new promotion, the largest ever formed by the ENM. Ministers, on the other hand, are condemned to adapt from day to day. Considered, the idea of a government seminar on Thursday, with the new appointees, was abandoned. The same day, Gabriel Attal must go to Pas-de-Calais, to visit the French affected by the recent floods, a month after his first visit to the victims.
The Macron camp may have become accustomed to the procrastination of its leader, but exasperation was nevertheless felt in recent hours. “It’s unbearable», exclaimed a member of the presidential majority. Especially since he and most of his colleagues were all convinced that the outcome would mainly consist of reconfiguring certain perimeters and adjusting the casting marginally. “It’s going to be the big renewal of the leavers», predicted someone familiar with the Élysée. And for good reason, the only surprise that was looming will not take place.