PARIS, February 8 (Reuters) – François Bayrou did not rule out on Thursday running in the 2027 presidential election in order to “correct the excesses” of a government that is too detached in his eyes from the daily lives of the French, while ensuring that the MoDem remained “a full member of the presidential majority”.
The president of the centrist party explained at length on franceinfo his decision, announced the day before to Agence France-Presse, not to join Gabriel Attal’s government due to fundamental disagreements, in the midst of negotiations over a reshuffle.
“I will not let things drift without saying anything,” declared the mayor of Pau, worried about witnessing a “progression of extremes”. “I will not let a certain number of abuses take place which are based on ignorance by those responsible at the top of what the French are experiencing at the base.”
“It’s not me who sets the date for the presidential election, it’s the country. Open your eyes to what we are going through (…). The challenge of 2027 is that “we manage to reconcile France which fights at the bottom with France which decides at the top”, insisted the 72-year-old centrist leader, now free to move after his acquittal on Monday in the affair of the MoDem parliamentary assistants.
Returning to his decision not to enter the government, François Bayrou once again explained that he would have liked to take charge of National Education, a position he had held around thirty years ago, or a portfolio comparable to that of territorial planning, “two sectors which are incredibly significant of this loss of confidence that we are going through”.
“I was convinced that we could turn around National Education in a few years but that it requires a political choice which is to do that with teachers.” However, he added, “we are hearing the background music that teachers are not working enough. (…) National Education cannot recover in a purely managerial climate.”
He also said he was “terribly concerned” by the “constant, continual, progressive rupture in France between the base and the powers”, deploring that the government of Gabriel Attal counts, out of 14 full ministers, “11 ministers Parisians or Ile-de-France residents and not a single one from the south of the Loire.”
Assuring once again that he had declined the post of Minister of the Armed Forces, “the only sector in my eyes which is doing relatively well”, François Bayrou, on the other hand, denied having declared on Wednesday evening, during a meeting with elected representatives of the MoDem, that the party, member of the presidential majority since the start of Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term in 2017, and which today has 51 deputies, would suffer a “humiliation process” from those in power.
“I’m not sure those words were mine,” he said, while calling for a “better balance” within the majority. “Yes, we are full members of the majority that wants to rebuild the country,” he said, when asked about a possible break with the presidential camp in light of his arguments put forward to explain his refusal to enter the government. . (Written by Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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