"It's laborious, laborious, very, very slow": the blues and doubts of Modem deputies regarding François Bayrou's method

Was life easier when François Bayrou was only president of the Modem? This is what several MPs of the movement think, perplexed by the positions of the Prime Minister , caught in the treacle.

"I imagined things a little differently, with more freedom, more daring too. I have the impression that he's paralyzed, that he's not driving anything forward. Frankly, it's not easy to live with," sighs a member of parliament from his camp to BFMTV.

With only 36 deputies in the National Assembly, less than 10% of the Palais-Bourbon's total, the blues among the MoDem elected officials may not be immediately apparent. But looking at the vote tally, their turnout has been rather low in recent weeks, and not always in the direction the Prime Minister expected.

On June 30, only four of them came to vote in the chamber on the audiovisual reform proposed by Culture Minister Rachida Dati and defended by François Bayrou. And yet: they all voted against it.

"We all had trouble understanding why he would get involved in an issue that no one cares about. I feel like we're spending time on details and not talking about anything important," laments a parliamentary assistant.

Faced with a National Assembly without an absolute majority, the Prime Minister has been betting from the start on holding out for the long term, even if it means appearing to perpetually postpone hot issues.

The pension conclave that secured the Socialist Party's goodwill for a time? Six months after its launch was announced, these meetings between social partners and employers have turned into a fiasco despite "significant progress," according to the head of government.

The 2026 budget must be finalized to find €40 billion? After a press conference on April 15, the centrist was careful not to provide any specific suggestions. Specific suggestions will be presented on July 15, but they will likely evolve significantly between now and the budget debates in the fall to satisfy the National Rally and the Socialists and thus avoid censure.

MP Richard Ramos, who presents himself as a "François Bayrou specialist," is not pretending.

"When he was appointed, I said he would be very good because he wouldn't do anything," admits this fellow traveler of the Modem leader. "It's laborious, laborious, very, very slow," exasperates one of his former lieutenants.

"Let's be patient. In the second phase, he's going to do some very valuable things and we'll see it in the budget, you'll see," Richard Ramos believes.

He's not the only one defending the method chosen by Matignon, which advocates dialogue, long-term planning, and perspective. "We're talking with all parties to save money, we're bringing together the social partners and giving them control, something that hasn't been done since 2017. I don't understand how anyone can blame him for that," fumes Modem MP Mickaël Cosson.

The configuration of the Modem group in the Assembly may also explain the doubts it is experiencing. Its ranks include ex-Macronists like Perrine Goulet, as well as former Socialist Olivier Falorni, who championed the end-of-life law — despite François Bayrou's reservations on the subject—and Erwan Balanant, who temporarily broke with his movement after forming alliances with the right. Many of them have never spent much time directly with him.

The centrist, who left the Assembly in 2012, has largely never been a leader, having founded his party with only a few loyal supporters who remained at his side after his break with the right in the 2000s.

"François Bayrou has had his fill. Most of the Modem MPs today did not experience the era when he chose to support François Hollande over Nicolas Sarkozy. Some were forged through adversity and hatred of the right, but not those sitting in their seats today," observes one LR elected official.

To keep the Modem deputies going, the Prime Minister continues to meet with them regularly. While the centrist explained on RTL in early July that he was holding "neither aperitifs" nor "political dinners," he met with them again this Wednesday for a cocktail lunch with other elected members of the Common Core.

Some lieutenants are also tasked with maintaining the connection, such as Marc Fesneau, the group's president in the Assembly; Patrick Mignola, the minister in charge of relations with Parliament; and Séverine de Compreignac, who heads the parliamentary division at the Élysée Palace. This is enough to try to chase away the depression of parliamentarians who are trying to console themselves.

"The atmosphere is logical. The government wasn't formed by a Modem head of state. We had to work within the common core. And I'm not going to tell you that we wouldn't have liked the ministers to be more like us. But we're making do with the current situation," says MP Géraldine Bannier.

"He always told us that if we all thought the same thing, we would no longer think anything. Somewhere, right now, we are experiencing this way of seeing life," the elected official philosophizes.

With an initial assessment in the autumn which will allow us to see whether François Bayrou's system of thought will pass the budgetary test of fire.