Under the restored vault of Notre-Dame, ambition. Everywhere. This Saturday, December 7, elected officials from all sides are coming to celebrate the reopening of the cathedral, devoured by flames five years earlier. Architectural genius is hardly discussed in discussions. The imminent appointment of a Prime Minister is on everyone’s lips. Centrist senator Hervé Marseille talks with environmentalist Yannick Jadot. The Minister of Decentralization Catherine Vautrin confesses the absence of signs from Emmanuel Macron.
François Bayrou is there. In good humor, he thanks an elected representative from Les Républicains (LR), author of kind remarks towards him on television. That week, he called Laurent Wauquiez to survey him on Matignon. The former minister did not veto. Was he surprised by this sudden indulgence? The Béarnais is rather used to jeers from the right, between accusations of “betrayal” and Nicolas Sarkozy’s personal vendetta. But the latter is considering participating in the government of the future tenant of Matignon, despite a tumultuous history.
At the origin, there is contempt. The right does not like François Bayrou. She pins this maneuvering and hardly courageous apparatchik with a starving record at the Ministry of National Education. She lists the list of her “betrayals” to the Gaullist family. This refusal to join the UMP in 2002. This choice to vote for François Hollande against Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012. This rallying to Emmanuel Macron five years later, the last nail on François Fillon’s coffin. As early as October 2016, Sarkozysts highlighted in a column his support for Alain Juppé during the right-wing primary, a symptom of “this ideological compromise”. The right despises him? He gives it back. François Bayrou has always decried the hegemonic temptation of the UMP, suspected of stifling political sensitivities. This distrust never left him. As soon as Michel Barnier’s government was formed, he privately criticized the return of the “RPR State”.
“We are not going to do revenge twelve years later”
In politics, animosity ends where interests converge. The right has identified its own. She took a liking to responsibilities under Michel Barnier. Rediscover the outlook of the French, twelve years after the defeat of Nicolas Sarkozy. She finally stands out from the National Rally, placed in the camp of the “sowers” of chaos since the vote of censure against Michel Barnier. LR ministers want to continue their mission, like Beauvau tenant Bruno Retailleau. He thus spared François Bayrou on December 5 in THE Figarorecognizing him for having “never made a pact with the NFP”. The right is rediscovering the virtues of time, which heals many wounds. The Sarkozyist Brice Hortefeux philosophizes: “We are no longer in 2014. Even if certain Gaullists were still settling their accounts with the Giscardians in 1981, after the referendum of 1969.” “We are not going to take revenge twelve years later, but there is an animosity among us. There is still an animosity, but it is not blocking,” notes a resigning minister. An executive concludes: “There is limitation.”
The right still doesn’t like François Bayrou. She tolerates it, that’s all. This Friday, the boss of deputies DR Laurent Wauquiez brings together his troops by videoconference, after an exchange with Bruno Retailleau and the president of senators LR Mathieu Darnaud. MPs, like Ian Boucard or Philippe Gosselin, recall the hostility of their voters to François Bayrou. Without making it a casus belli. “It’s not easy, unlike September with Barnier,” admits Laurent Wauquiez. The latter does not veto any right-wing participation in the next government. On the other hand, he wishes to subject it to substantive conditions. Around the Minister of the Interior, the same discourse is deployed.
“Responsibility” has a price
The orientations of the new government will decide the choice of the right. Time for negotiations. Bruno Retailleau exchanges Friday evening at Matignon with François Bayrou. With Laurent Wauquiez, will they have the same level of demands? The two men share similar beliefs, but have divergent interests. The first, anxious to embody the alternation in 2027, fears of merging into macronism. The second wants to stay in government, but not at all costs. The exchanges will draw a straight line in unison or worked by strategic tensions. Turbulence to be expected.
Nothing went as planned. Who imagined the right working with François Bayrou in the summer of 2024? The appointment of Michel Barnier happened there. The experience of the “common core” was brief but created a precedent. The collaboration of the right and Macronie under the aegis of a Prime Minister LR has opened up new perspectives. “If we had Bayrou after Attal, perhaps the right would have gone text by text, without participating in the government,” slips senator LR Roger Karoutchi.
The Savoyard acted as a decontamination airlock for Macronie. For the happiness of the right, say the supporters of a return to business. For his misfortune, others fear. Before the appointment of François Bayrou, a deputy confided his doubts about this visibility gained by LR. “It’s true when you have Matignon because it’s you who set the line. It’s true individually for Retailleau or Genevard, but those who are not in government do not want to be in the wake of “an executive who would appear to be in the hands of Macron.” But the spirit of responsibility comes at a price. His name is François Bayrou.
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