Expected to return to a ministerial portfolio after his relaxation in the affair of the assistants of European parliamentarians on Monday, François Bayrou announced Wednesday February 7 to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that he “will not enter government” mistake “strongly agree on the policy to follow”.
The appointment of the second half of the government of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, which should make it possible to replace ministers with very broad functions, has been expected for several days. But his announcement is constantly postponed. Mr. Attal has also given up on bringing together his entire new team on Thursday morning for a seminar in Matignon, according to several government sources telling AFP.
Since the court decision on Monday, Mr. Bayrou had not hidden his desire to return to government – his name was circulating for national education in place of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. “There are many ways to serve, I have not eliminated any or chosen any”he said Tuesday morning on BFM-TV.
In his statement to AFP, Mr. Bayrou assures that he “there were two areas that (him) seemed to deserve full commitment: the Ministry of National Education” and “the gulf that has widened between the province and Paris”. “We could not find an agreement on these two points”, summarized the mayor of Pau, who said he also declined the ministry of the armies. The MoDem currently has a ministerial portfolio with Marc Fesneau in agriculture. The president of the centrist party, whose group in the National Assembly belongs to the presidential coalition with Renaissance and Horizons, was received for an hour by the President of the Republic on Monday and had lunch for more than two hours with Gabriel Attal on Tuesday.
A “crippling” difference in approach
About the ministry currently occupied by MMe Oudéa-Castera, Mr. Bayrou believes that he “Today is experiencing a crisis 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”.
“An increasingly relative majority! Welcome to MoDem in opposition »joked Wednesday evening on his X account the president of the socialist group in the National Assembly, Boris Vallaud.
The mayor of Pau, 72, was appointed in 2017 to the Ministry of Justice in Emmanuel Macron’s first government before resigning a month later due to the opening of an investigation into the employment of parliamentary assistants European MoDem. He was acquitted almost seven years later, Monday February 5, by the Paris criminal court. “The mechanism of justice is such, it is so heavy, you do not have the means to defend yourself”he regretted on Tuesday on BFM-TV, recalling that “It’s extremely expensive”.