2009, June 5. François Bayrou comes out of “a violent, brief, and far from trivial confrontation” with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the day before on the set of the program “You be the judge”. Three days before the European elections, the two heads of the list have not spared each other. Responding to insinuations of convenience with regard to Nicolas Sarkozy, Daniel Cohn-Bendit yielded to familiarity and insult: “My friend, I tell you, you will never be President of the Republic, because you are too shabby”. In retaliation, François Bayrou will shoot another card, that of pedophilia: “I find it despicable, me, to have pushed and justified acts with regard to children that I cannot accept”. Reference to Cohn-Bendit’s polemical writings on sexuality children dated 1975. Writings which, moreover, will resurface during the European elections… of 2019. But this is not the subject of the day.
The spectacle of politics and the media
A political contest that degenerates into fistfights, nothing but very banal. Jadot and Zemmour provided a new illustration of this on March 17. But the accusation is serious, especially so close to the ballot. In June 2009, I was then on an end-of-study internship within the web editorial staff of 20 minutes. Trained in Cannes and Montpellier, I have only been in Paris for a few months and this is the first event of this magnitude that I have covered. When François Bayrou convenes a press conference at the headquarters of the Modem, obviously, I am the first to want to go there. But not the only one. When I arrived at 133 bis rue de l’Université, I was far from imagining the spectacle I was about to witness. A François Bayrou in the role of the affable host, surrounded by a swarm of journalists hanging on his lips. I no longer count the microphones with windscreens printed in the colors of their media. I only see the names; all the most prestigious newsrooms made the trip. Even if it probably cost a few points to the MoDem, this pass of arms will be quickly forgotten. Still, it was that day that I said to myself: “That’s it, you have your feet in the news in France. »