National Front, instructions for use. “It is not fighting against the FN to make it the sole subject of conversations. The only way to fight effectively against it is to show that politicians can behave differently and to resolve the problems precisely and quickly that can be solved.” It’s February 2016 and François Bayrou seems very confident on the BFMTV set. Marine Le Pen? Let’s not talk about it, let’s act.
Here he is, almost nine years later, named tenant of Matignon. Responsible for unblocking the institutional situation. Responsible, also, for defusing the nuisance power of the far-right party, 121 of whose representatives have taken up residence at the Palais Bourbon, and with whom we must now deal. In the entourage of the Head of State, we assure him: to find “the conditions for stability”, François Bayrou will have to dialogue “with the parties outside the RN and LFI”. François Bayrou swears that “reconciliation is possible”. But which one, and with whom?
Claws and phone calls
With Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron’s ally has long maintained distant relations. A few scratches to start. In 2015, for example. When he assures that Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter has “gone crazy”, “caught in this moment of politics where passion prevails over everything else with the feeling of being besieged”, after Marine Le Pen posted images on Twitter of executions carried out by the Islamic State. In 2017, too, when he described as “an immense shame” the rallying of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan to the member of parliament for Pas-de-Calais for the second round of the presidential election.
But the center has its reasons that reason ignores. More recently, François Bayrou also took the path of appeasement. 2018, after a brief stint at the Ministry of Justice, the MoDem man is working on a subject that is dear to him. The creation of a public body for financing political parties. Marine Le Pen feels concerned, she who had to approach Russian banks to finance her electoral campaign. “It’s scandalous that no bank wants to lend to Marine Le Pen,” the short-lived Minister of Justice confided at the time. “I’ve fought the Le Pens all my life, but it’s scandalous.” Did Marine Le Pen hear this confession? In any case, it is his name that appears on this day in July 2018 on François Bayrou’s phone. The conversation will be courteous, focused on the need to carry out this project, which will nevertheless be buried by the government of Edouard Philippe.
Common interests
François Bayrou, what is your main fault? Failing to answer “perfectionist”, the Béarnais could have answered: “Committed to fairness, to democracy.” In 2022, it is “to save democracy” that he is providing his sponsorship to the National Rally candidate. “I cannot defend before my fellow citizens of all opinions the idea that the President of the French Republic would be elected in an election from which the main candidates would be excluded,” he then justifies, specifying that his sponsorship is not worth support. Marine Le Pen takes note. “We will have to remember that,” she says.
And then, several times, the centrist and the Lepenist heiress were driven by common interests. On proportional representation, already, which both have been demanding for years. Linked, too, by a similar legal journey and accusations in the affair of the European parliamentary assistants of their respective parties. If François Bayrou was acquitted, before seeing the prosecution appeal, Marine Le Pen risks ineligibility and awaits her judgment, which will be delivered on March 31. However, she benefited from the anticipated support of the new Prime Minister. The latter, a few weeks ago, assured that the provisional execution of the sentence of ineligibility would be “a problem”, assuring that preventing Marine Le Pen from running in the next presidential election would lead certain citizens to “consider that there is something that distorts democratic life.”
“Scalded cat fears cold water”
Statements which today allow the frontists to affirm that François Bayrou “is not the worst”. “It will not be the most hostile (and it will be the most cultured) and he will be keen to pass the proportional system”, comments the MP from the North and close to Marine Le Pen Caroline Parmentier. Since the vote of censure, names have been mentioned among the frontists – excluded from the decision-making process. And that of the mayor of Pau does not provoke cries of outrage. From Hénin-Beaumont, this Friday, Marine Le Pen was still cautious: “I would be extremely careful because a scalded cat fears cold water and big declarations do not always lead to action,” she said. assured, insisting that his complaints concerning the increase in taxes or energy prices be taken into account I am waiting to see if the only condition posed by the RN who never asked for a place or position but that his. voters are heard if this is respected, we will know soon enough.” Verdict: no a priori censorship. But Marine Le Pen appears more threatening than Jordan Bardella, assuring: “I consider that censorship is a constitutional lever for protecting the French people, to say that I forbid myself from using it would be real madness, in any case real treason, I am not giving up this tool and the conditions we are setting are completely legitimate and reasonable.”
Privately, those close to the MP assure that the latter has not been very enthusiastic, in recent weeks, at the mention of the Prime Minister’s name. “She is not particularly laudatory about him, specifies a frontist elected official. It’s even worse: as soon as we talk about the help he was able to give us, Marine Le Pen diminishes it with a negative image, and assures us that he did not treat us better than the others.”
And if François Bayrou repeats his desire for reconciliation, in his speech this Friday, December 13, the far-right party and its demands are never mentioned. A phone call made on Wednesday to the frontist leader gives her hope of non-censorship in exchange for the rapid implementation of proportional representation. Marine Le Pen, from her northern stronghold, expresses her first reservations, and warns: “I am not going to comment on all of Mr. Bayrou’s meetings in the coming days. The question is which government and to do what , that’s what interests me.” Since Matignon, this Friday evening, François Bayrou is undoubtedly asking himself the same question.
.