This might have been his moment. On October 12, 2021, under the golds of the Elysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron presents with great fanfare France 2030, the vast investment plan supposed to project the country into the decade to come, and to remake France “a great nation of innovation”. In the second row behind the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, François Bayrou attends, with the whole of the government, the speech that the Head of State delivers in front of an audience of some 200 students, investors, industrialists and researchers. But Emmanuel Macron will hardly have a word for the one who has held the position of High Commissioner for Planning for more than a year, and whom he asked, in his mission letter, to“shed light on the collective choices that the nation will have to make to maintain or rebuild its sovereignty”.
Since September 2020, the boss of the MoDem, mayor of Pau and president of his agglomeration community has headed the High Commission General for Planning (HCP). A political renaissance for him, and a resurrection for this key post-war institution, “ardent obligation” according to General de Gaulle, created in 1946 to modernize France and its economy, with the backing of five-year plans. Shelved in the early 1990s, the planning principle is coming back into favor in view of the flaws brought to light by the health crisis.
Sixteen months and ten “opening notes” later, however, very clever who can say what François Bayrou is really doing at the HCP. Perplexed faces at best, embarrassed smiles… For many of our interlocutors, ministers, economists, parliamentarians or business leaders, the appointment of François Bayrou to this post is above all a means for him to maintain influence in the first circles of Macronia. “The HCP’s production of ideas is due to the media coverage of its boss, its political interpersonal skills and the direct link it has with Emmanuel Macron. That’s what helps to move the notes to the top of the pile.” summarizes the Elysée.
His appointment to the HCP sixteen months ago, however, sounded like a new start. Landed from his post as Minister of Justice following the opening of a preliminary investigation into the alleged fictitious employment of the European parliamentary assistants of the MoDem in June 2017, François Bayrou then struggled to find a place on the national scene.
A historic ally of the Head of State, the septuagenarian has been approached for this post since the cabinet reshuffle of July 6, 2020, but the announcement of his appointment has been the subject of intense negotiations all summer. The Prime Minister, Jean Castex, and the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, see it as a potentially cumbersome rival. François Bayrou, he only wishes to depend on the Head of State.
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