François Bayrou is much more weakened than he admits it by the Betharram case. Within the Macronie and its own political camp, we wonder about the management of this dossier.
The essentials:
- Will François Bayrou have to leave Matignon, splashed by the scandal of the sexual assault of Betharram? The political press is increasingly relaying the concern of members of the presidential camp. “If he was aware and he did nothing, he died. As we obtain the certainty of that, he can no longer stay,” analysis with Médiapart A relative of Emmanuel Macron.
- Visiting the Agricultural Show this Saturday, Emmanuel Macron assured that François Bayrou had “all his confidence”.
- The Prime Minister has changed his position on the elements he was aware of on the boarding school in Betharram. But he says he knew nothing about sexual violence, contrary to what several people, including a victim and a magistrate, said.
- On Tuesday, François Bayrou assured that the socialist government in place between 1997 and 2002, he was well warned of rape accusations against Father Carricart, ex-director of the Betharram institution. The Prime Minister notably accused the former Minister of Justice Élisabeth Guigou and the former minister responsible for school education, Ségolène Royal, of having done nothing.
- According to information from BFMTV, the Minister of Justice at the time Elisabeth Guigou had indeed “been warned by the highest magistrate in Pau” of the facts alleged against Father Carricart.
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14:48 – Emmanuel Macron assures that François Bayrou “has all his confidence”
“The Prime Minister answered all the questions on this subject with great clarity. The Prime Minister, I appointed him and he has all my confidence,” said Emmanuel Macron, on the sidelines of his visit to the show of the agriculture. “The fight of the fight against the violence that has been made to our children is mine from the start and I will lead it to the end,” he added.
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“Others knew”. These words are signed by François Bayrou, this Tuesday, February 18, 2025 in the National Assembly about the controversy – which continues to swell – around the violence committed against certain students of Notre -Dame de Bétharram. In the lower room of the Parliament, the Prime Minister said that he was “never” intervened in this case, “neither near nor far” after being questioned by deputy PS Colette Capdevielle
As a reminder, the tenant of Matignon acknowledged this Saturday that he had knowledge of a complaint for violence in the 1990s, after meeting the members of the association of victims at the town hall of Pau. “When I learned in 1996 the first complaint for a slap, I had a general inspection of the establishment organized,” he said, therefore conceding that he knew this specific fact of violence.
Royal, Guigou and Assigre Targeted
This time, François Bayrou accuses certain political figures in place at the time of having been aware of certain actions in the establishment of Béarn. In the hemicycle, the latter attacked the government of the time and more particularly to three of them. “What was the government at that time? It was the socialist government from 1997 to 2002. The Minister of Justice was Élisabeth Guigou (…) who was the Minister of National Education? It was it? Claude Allègre. Who was the minister responsible for school education? It was Ségolène Royal, “he said. According to information from Bfmtvthe Minister of Justice of the time Elisabeth Guigou “had been warned by the highest magistrate of Pau” of the facts alleged against Father Carricart, former director of the Betharram institution and accused of rape. Three letters dating from 1998 and 2000 – that the continuous news channel has obtained – attest to this.
“I affirm before you, and you will verify it, that the Attorney General kept the Chancellery 4 times in 1998,” he said. This is why, the latter judges that the members of the executive Jospin were not “warned” of “such important report”. “There cannot be such a report without the Minister of Education being warned,” he abounds. A line shared by the current Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, who came to the aid of François Bayrou: “It is not to those who were not the responsibilities that they must be asked, but to those who ‘were at the time, “he said.
However, a gendarme in charge of the investigation into Father Carricart accused of rape at the time evokes a “intervention” of François Bayrou. “The Attorney General asks to see the file, Mr. Bayrou intervened with him,” he said in the program seven to eight this Sunday, February 16. Declarations which once again forced François Bayrou to justify himself before the National Assembly on Tuesday.
To prove his innocence, the Prime Minister assured that Judge Mirande and the ex-procureur general of Pau simply could not have communicated to him in detail on the violence in Notre-Dame de Betharram because of their “absolute integrity “. “A magistrate is not entitled, under penalty of disciplinary sanctions (…) to communicate any element of the file for which he is responsible,” said the mayor of Pau on Tuesday. “If he didn’t say anything, I didn’t know anything about this affair,” he said.