“I never intended to appoint François Bayrou”: words of the president. Word from the president to a former president. On Sunday December 8, Emmanuel Macron is categorical in front of Nicolas Sarkozy. Who says true, who says false? François Bayrou will tell him that the Head of State assured him something else: to his predecessor, he would have indicated his intention to choose Béarnais.
Who says false, who says true? François Bayrou assures that he told Emmanuel Macron, between four eyes, that famous Friday, December 13 in the morning, that he had joined him for “great things” in 2017 – and that the appointment of Sébastien Lecornu to Matignon fell into the category of “little things”. Emmanuel Macron doesn’t hear it that way, in any case he swears he didn’t hear that from the horse’s mouth – it was through an intermediary that the message would have been transmitted.
Vengeance and distrust
These two wanted to lower the temperature last weekend. François Bayrou himself asked his loved ones. Saturday promise, Monday denial. We must see them on the evening of December 16, interministerial crisis unit, the president physically present, alert, sharp as he knows how to be when difficulties cover everything; the Prime Minister from a distance, asking twice: “Where are we with tents and tarpaulins?” while for many minutes this question has been decided. Then the disappearance: François Bayrou no longer responds, no longer interacts. Would he have felt unwell? even one participant worries. The new tenant of Matignon cannot still miss the summary of the instructions that the Head of State is about to deliver. The latter monitors his phone, do his advisors inform him that the head of government is at this very moment live on a television channel presiding over his municipal council in Pau? Too bad, we’ll do without him. So much the better, we will do without him, here is the president once again the sole master on board. The time of its weakening will only have lasted a short time.
Revenge is a dish that doesn’t need to cool. From this meeting, Emmanuel Macron plays Bruno Retailleau against his Prime Minister. The staging around the crisis unit has only one objective: to underline and highlight the first error. Which ? Prefer Pau to the country. While the Minister of the Interior jumped on a plane at Ajaccio airport where he received the Pope on Sunday December 15, to reach, without detour via Paris, the island of Reunion then Mayotte and thus prove that the The French state does not abandon any of its territories, the Béarnais, for his part, defended his wish to remain mayor and to stand alongside the people of Palois. To the first, in private, the president gives a good point. In the second case, it simply gives the wrong image.
Distrust is a cocktail that can give off some steam. François Bayrou would do well to be on his guard. Around Emmanuel Macron, these days, we have noted, amazed, that the Prime Minister strives to be independent in the composition of his government. Forgetting a little quickly that in the end, it is the president who appoints. “It is true that he has the power to cross out a name, modify attributions, and he can do it at the last minute, before publication of the government…”: an innocent reminder from a strategist of the Head of State. Is Bayrou aware of this? Macron without a doubt, so concerned about his prerogatives, “he who has been tearing off the legs of beetles since he was two years old”, muses a relative. For now, the discussions are going rather well.
A “humiliation” and “consideration”
Two names, two tensions. Sébastien Lecornu, Gérald Darmanin. What Emmanuel Macron likes about the first is what François Bayrou hates: his loyalty to the head of state, which allowed him to almost be appointed to Matignon this time. The composition of the government would also have been facilitated since the president and the Minister of the Armed Forces had agreed on several names, notably that of the occupant of Bercy, a key position for passing the thorny 2025 budget. C It is Agnès Pannier-Runacher who should have been offered the portfolio. Instead…
Lecornu to Matignon? “It’s a humiliation!” And who, last week, said it, almost shouted it on the phone with an intimate of Emmanuel Macron? The best friend of the Minister of Defense, a certain Gérald Darmanin. He considers that the time has absolutely not come to promote “Sébastien”. The choice of François Bayrou suits him much more. Because the former Minister of the Interior has not forgotten that, during the summer of 2023, when the president himself had given him a glimpse of a possible arrival at Matignon, this dear Lecornu pleaded for stability with the maintenance of ‘Elisabeth Borne. At the time, François Bayrou, on the contrary, had not raised any argument against Darmanin’s promotion. After years of incomprehension, during which the mayor of Pau saw in the elected representative of Tourcoing only a young clone (two faults for the price of one) of Nicolas Sarkozy, their relations calmed down. In the days following the arrival of the new Prime Minister, the two men spoke. The Quai d’Orsay now appears to be a serious option for the former top cop of France.
Between François Bayrou and Sébastien Lecornu, however, everything begins with silence. That of forgetting or that of forgiveness? Last April, the two had dinner together in Pau. “Show consideration towards him”: the Minister of Defense had been told that the Béarnais suspected him, along with others, of not having anything to do with his legal troubles. We therefore had to show our credentials. Lecornu had returned to the capital, convinced that things were normalized between them.
Sébastien Lecornu, who should remain in the Armed Forces, has never had a simple relationship with the Prime Ministers. Gabriel Attal readily recalls that the Minister of Defense called in sick when he himself made a visit devoted to military matters, just as he was conspicuous by his absences during government seminars. Michel Barnier was surprised that the same accused him of having launched his name in Le Figaro when censorship approached, as he did not understand that his minister would one day disappear from Questions to the government, while he was… in his office at the Hôtel de Brienne but above all he did not want to give the impression of being in the campaign for Matignon.
A third name enters the debates. When he was campaigning for Matignon, François Bayrou, including with Emmanuel Macron, argued for the presence in the government of Xavier Bertrand to attest to his ability to bring people together widely. But Marine Le Pen, publicly as well as through private channels, got the message across: if the president of the Hauts-de-France region obtains a portfolio, even if only the state secretariat for stuffed cabbage (which does not correspond not exactly to the ambition if not the skills of Xavier Bertrand), she would consider this a casus belli. The elected official from the North has therefore become a marker of the distance that the new Prime Minister will establish with the National Rally. Welcome to the land of cacti.
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