It is customary for the Prime Minister to move to Matignon as long as he occupies his duties. François Bayrou explains his choice to stay living at home.
The last tenant of Matignon was Gabriel Attal. Since then, Michel Barnier, probably aware that his mandate was ephemeral, has not moved on rue de Varennes. The current Prime Minister did not settle down in Matignon either. However, he survived the censorships posted against his government, so he could feel enough at the time of his mandate to move, but the one who is still mayor of Pau has very specific reasons.
As he entrusted to Parisian, Saturday, February 8, the Prime Minister still lives at his home in Bordères, a town in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques where he was born. He therefore regularly goes back and forth of almost 800 km between this town and Paris. He assures “not to be made to live in a palace”, although Matignon is actually a mansion. “The palaces are deadly and cut you in the world. You don’t look at things in the same way when you are served. It’s not life,” he explains.
Bayrou wants to live a real life
“Hence I come from, there was no servant, no palace, no money,” continues the Prime Minister, who wants to express a close position here. However, the one who chose to remain mayor of Pau at the same time as he occupies the functions of Prime Minister has already taken a jet to go to a municipal council. It is certainly not a palace, but it denotes with its words. François Bayrou had justified this by explaining why he wanted to remain mayor: “We must re-root political responsibilities, in the villages, the districts, the cities.”