Even more crucially, Bayrou has so far been unable to extend his narrow base of support in France’s fragmented legislature — something he will need to accomplish to avoid the fate of his predecessor Michel Barnier whose minority government was toppled by a no-confidence backed by nearly all opposition parties.
Part-time PM, part-time mayor
Bayrou’s most glaring blunder came Monday evening when he embarked on an official government plane to attend a city council meeting in Pau. The centrist leader said he wants to remain mayor of Pau, a city with a population of 77,000, while being prime minister.
But what shocked the most, even within Bayrou’s own ranks, was the timing of his trip.
Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the French National Assembly and a member of the same pro-Emmanuel Macron coalition as Bayrou, said she “would have preferred that the prime minister fly to Mamoudzou instead of Pau.”
Mamoudzou is the capital of Mayotte, a French island in the Indian Ocean which has been grappling with the aftermath of tropical cyclone Chido since last weekend. Local authorities fear that hundreds, possibly thousands, may be dead.
“In this type of circumstance, we need to be 100 percent mobilized for crisis management,” Braun-Pivet added.
