While the political scene is buzzing with rumors about the imminence of a reshuffle, the president of the MoDem and ally of Emmanuel Macron considers himself prevented from running for Matignon by the upcoming trial of his party’s parliamentary assistants. “If the question is ‘would you have liked to have done that’, I would have loved to have done that. I am concerned enough about the situation in the country to tell you that, yes, I would have liked to take on this role (…) but I am offside”, he declared on Sunday June 18 during the “Le Grand Jury RTL -Le Figaro-LCI”.
“I’m not in that game today because we’re going to have a completely unfounded trial in the fall,” he said when asked about the possibility of seeing him succeed Elisabeth Borne.
The current High Commissioner for Planning will be tried from October 16, along with ten other UDF and MoDem executives, for complicity in the embezzlement of European public funds, between June 2005 and January 2017. They are suspected of having used European funds to hire parliamentary assistants who would in fact have worked, at least partially, for the party.
For an “autonomous” Prime Minister
This judicial mortgage does not prevent him from delivering his convictions on the government situation, on which the former minister considers that there is “possible progress”. “I am for a strong president, a strong government and a strong parliament,” he summed up. “I am for the Prime Minister to have autonomy from the President of the Republic”, as well as a “deep understanding” with the Head of State, he continued.
But also “political weight” in “whoever goes to the podium, in circumstances as difficult as those we know today with a lack of majority”, he added, referring to Emmanuel Macron the deciding whether Ms. Borne met the correct criteria.
As he had already expressed this week, Mr. Bayrou said he was “opposed to the turn to the right as well as to the left”, while part of the macronist camp is pushing in favor of an agreement with Les Républicains. “I find it welcome that there is a Republican right trying to rebuild itself” and “appreciable the work that is done on ideas” by LR boss Eric Ciotti, developed Mr. Bayrou.
“But the idea that LR, elected in the opposition, would abandon its positions to enter the majority, it is an idea in which I do not believe”, he argued. Generally speaking, “you can make deals if you’re solid on your foundation, if everyone knows who you are, where you’re going, and you refuse to be tossed about one way or the other.” another, “said this pillar of the majority.