Olivier de Lagarde 8:56 a.m., February 8, 2024

Every day on Europe 1's morning show, Olivier de Lagarde scrutinizes and analyzes the day's press. Today, the announcement of the non-participation of François Bayrou in the next government, the composition of which we are still awaiting, and Marine Le Pen at the top of the voting intentions for the next presidential election.

What does François Bayrou play?

This is the very good question of the day. The news of his non-participation in government came late yesterday, but the political services worked quickly.

In the Parisian Today in France, Olivier Beaumont and Pauline Théveniaud retrace the thread of this fool's day.

“Because Macron and Bayrou had talked about the number of ministers in the government in the afternoon,” says a witness to the negotiations.

“Everything was going so well. The president was even ready to accept that he be minister of state and number 2 in the government.”

Ultimately, it was a telephone exchange between Bayrou and Attal that derailed everything... Furious, Bayrou then called the AFP and caused lightning to speak.

“Unmanageable, irritable, egotistical”

That's it for the facts

The consequence appears in the headlines on the front page of Le Télégramme. “It’s the Bayrou crisis” announces the Breton newspaper.

“We had forgotten that he could be a killer, writes Hubert Coudurier in his columns… That he had ruined the end of Sarkozy's mandate, described as a child king, even if it meant favoring the election of Hollande.”

And the editorialist explains that Bayrou is above all a power of nuisance and a pleasure of existing in an already weakened majority...

“Unmanageable, irritable, egotistical…He is demonstrating here why he could not join the government” declared a very angry executive advisor to Les Echos.

So maybe, but it is in any case “a public humiliation and a slap in the face for Attal” analyzes a minister close to Emmanuel Macron in Le Figaro. Does this initiative weaken the majority by marking a break in the modem, asks Loris Boichot in his columns. “It could be a turning point,” said a senior party official.

Who benefits from this new crisis? The answer is already in Valeurs Actuelles this week.

The weekly publishes an Ifop poll which will cause a lot of ink to flow: Survey which gives Marine Le Pen the winner in the 2nd round of the presidential election 51/49 against Gabriel Attal and 50/50 in the event that she faces Edouard Philippe.

But the most spectacular is the result of the first round where the RN candidate is now credited with 36% of the votes. 14 points ahead of the presidential majority candidate.

Comment from Marine Le Pen: “Everything we predicted is happening right now.”

Belloubet: the return?

What no one predicted was that we would still not have a full government one month after the appointment of Gabriel Attal to Matignon.

If you are not tired of rumors, know that the one that is rampant today is that of the return of Nicole Belloubet. The Former Minister of Justice would replace Amélie Oudéa Castéra at National Education…

100 billion euros deficit

Let's talk about foreign trade, if a minister in charge of the file had been appointed. He could have congratulated himself on the reduction in the deficit but he would have been wrong. Because the 2023 figure is not good, it is just a little less catastrophic than that of the previous year. And on the front page of Le Figaro, Gaétan de Capèle explains to us why it is serious.

100 billion euros of deficit is the real thermometer of the state of health of a country. It measures both our dependence and our competitiveness. Well, France continues its slide, we are losing ground each year compared to our competitors.

“America innovates, China imitates, Europe regulates.”

Yes but why ? Why ultimately is French growth always lower than that of the United States, for example?

That's also a good question. Well, if you're interested, read the column written by Augustin Landier and David Thesmar, respectively professors at HEC and MIT. It is in Les Echos, a newspaper which is far from being anti-European that you will read this…

Their answer is that it is excessive regulation that is weighing us down. 

Moreover, the American press is mocking when it summarizes the situation: “America innovates, China imitates, Europe regulates”. GDPR, AI law, Green Deal, Farm to fork. Brussels is piling up constraints on small businesses that are not equipped to manage regulations.

For technocrats, standards have an important advantage, they continue: they cost nothing in public spending. Except that they hamper growth... Brussels must therefore change its DNA...

And as if in echo we are going to leave the conclusion to Etienne Gernelle this morning. In the Point, he is one of the only ones to welcome the absence of government... And the consequence, he writes, is that during these four weeks of fallowness in the ministries, a number of absurd standards and regulations n could not see the light of day... And to welcome these holidays from this normative madness.

Unfortunately Bayrou or not a government is promised to us for the coming hours. The best things always come to an end.