France’s new Prime Minister Francois Bayrou Tuesday fended off a torrent of criticism after he chaired a provincial town hall meeting as the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte grappled with the devastation of a cyclone.
The controversy erupted less than a week after Bayrou was named as the sixth prime minister of President Emmanuel Macron’s mandate with the task of ending months of political crisis.
The veteran centrist had already ruffled some feathers by insisting that he would keep his post as mayor of the southwestern city of Pau while serving as prime minister.
Bayrou went to Pau Monday evening to attend the town hall meeting where he confirmed that he would stay on in the post that he has held for the last decade.
His presence there meant he had to attend a meeting called by Macron on the Mayotte crisis by video. Hundreds are feared to have died in the storm.
French National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of Macron’s centrist party, criticised the trip to Pau.
“In the face of such a catastrophe — of a kind that has not been seen on French territory for decades — it is important to be side-by-side with the people.”
“I would have preferred that the prime minister, instead of taking a plane for Pau, took a plane for Mamoudzou,” she told Franceinfo radio, referring to Mayotte’s capital.
The head of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) in parliament Mathilde Panot said that after “20 years of the politics of abandonment” of Mayotte, Bayrou “did not understand the symbol” he had sent by going to Pau.
On the right, Republicans (LR) MP Thibault Bazin said that the municipal council could have “done without” the presence of its mayor” given the events in Mayotte and the urgency of France needing a 2025 budget.
Watch | Mayotte Reels From Cyclone Chido’s Devastation
‘My responsibility’
But quizzed about the trip in parliament, Bayrou defended his travel to Pau and remaining its mayor, saying, “We do not have the right to separate the province and the circle of power in Paris.”
“Pau is in France,” he argued.
“I chaired the municipal council of my city… and I consider that, in doing so, I was also carrying out my responsibility as a citizen,” he added.
Bayrou sparked further controversy by declaring “it is not customary for the prime minister and the president to leave the national territory at the same time.” Macron has said he will go to Mayotte. But critics pointed out that Mayotte as an overseas territory is an integral part of France.
Appointed on Friday, Bayrou has still to name a government, with ministers from the previous administration staying on in a caretaker capacity.
Bayrou met Macron on Tuesday to discuss the cabinet and was to hold further talks with the head of state, a source close to the prime minister said.
Bayrou told reporters he hoped to have a government formed “in the next days”.
In a day of high political drama when Bayrou was unveiled as premier on Friday, sources said Bayrou had effectively strong-armed Macron into naming him by threatening to withdraw the support of the centrist MoDem party that he leads.
Proud of his rural origins in southwestern France, Bayrou has written a biography of one of Pau’s most famous natives and his personal hero, King Henry IV, who ruled from 1589 till his assassination in 1610.
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