Bayrou, under fire from critics, met Macron to speed up the formation of his government

According to his entourage, the new Prime Minister spoke late in the morning for "more than an hour" with the Head of State at the Elysée.

The objective, according to Marc Fesneau: to discuss a "start-up architecture" for his government. The president of the MoDem deputies added that the two heads of the executive will make up the future team with "the desire to find a balance".

The new tenant of Matignon hopes to form his team "by the end of the week", according to parliamentary sources. His intention is to present around 25 people, it was added.

He will then deliver his general policy statement to Parliament on January 14.

In the meantime, the Prime Minister is preparing to give his first major oral examination starting at 15:00 p.m. at the National Assembly. He will answer questions from MPs for 45 minutes. Alone, since the ministers in office have resigned and are therefore not authorized to participate in the exercise.

The former Macronist Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, will question him in particular on Mayotte and "the exceptional means that the State must commit".

At the same time, consultations with political forces, which began on Monday, are continuing at Matignon.

The president of the Horizons deputies, Laurent Marcangeli, pleaded for "stability" with the Prime Minister, who had already spoken by telephone with Edouard Philippe on Sunday.

The leaders of the Ecologists were much more pessimistic, believing that Mr. Bayrou was already "gradually paving the way for his own censorship."

As for Laurent Wauquiez (LR), received on Monday, he requested a new meeting on Tuesday with the head of government, whose project is still "too vague" in his eyes.

Barely four days after his appointment, the president of the MoDem is already at the heart of a double controversy.

His choice to go to his town of Pau to defend his position as mayor, rather than attend a crisis meeting on Mayotte, which he followed remotely, has sparked strong criticism even within his own camp.

His idea of ​​once again authorising the accumulation of local mandates for parliamentarians, in order to "re-root" them in the territories, is also denounced, as is his desire to keep the town hall of Pau, alongside Matignon.

"Indecent"

The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, did not spare him. She would have "preferred that the Prime Minister, instead of taking a plane to Pau, take the plane to Mamoudzou", the capital of Mayotte, devastated by a deadly cyclone.

As for the accumulation of mandates, "this is really not the time" to "put this subject back on the table". "Today, the subject is the budget, it is Mayotte".

The leader of the Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, for his part, considered it "indecent to talk about the accumulation of mandates (...) while at the moment we are burying children, inhabitants" in the wounded archipelago. The First Secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, considered that the founder of the MoDem "is going astray" by taking up such a subject.

A rare voice to come to the rescue of the Prime Minister, Hervé Marseille, leader of the centrist senators and defender of the accumulation of posts, considered that Mr. Bayrou "did what he had to do."

For its part, the National Rally defends the idea of ​​combining the mandates of MP and mayor "below a certain threshold" of population. An opportunity for Marine Le Pen's party to strengthen the local network of its many MPs.

As for the accumulation of a ministerial function and a local mandate, nothing prohibits it in the law.

Ms Braun-Pivet, however, recalled that an unfinished constitutional reform providing for "the non-accumulation of ministerial functions and a local executive" had been "voted almost unanimously" by the deputies in 2018.

"By clinging" to his position as mayor of Pau, Mr. Bayrou "is making a serious error" coupled with a "significant political error" and "symbolically dramatic", denounced the coordinator of La France insoumise, Manuel Bompard.