On the news channels, François Bayrou clings to "Simone", "Jeannot" and "Jojo" to better sink

François Bayrou is fond of maritime metaphors. To illustrate the country's situation and the level of its debt , the Prime Minister alternately evokes the state of the ship's hull, infiltrated by the water, and the role of the captain he believes himself to be. He will therefore not hold it against us if we refer to it as a shipwreck in connection with his television appearance this Sunday, August 31.

Questioned by the four news channels and their very liberal presenters, Darius Rochebin (LCI), Myriam Encaoua (Franceinfo) and Marc Fauvelle (BFM TV) and Sonia Mabrouk (CNews), the founder of the MoDem struggled to justify his action a few days before the vote of confidence that he himself requested.

Although he is expected to fall , the mayor of Pau wanted to be combative. "I am certainly not here to say goodbye ," he introduced. "The days to come are crucial. If you think that I am going to abandon the battles that I have been fighting for years and that I will fight after, you are wrong!"

For the sake of pedagogy, François Bayrou ventured into examples addressed to "Simone" , "Jeannot" or "Jojo" to better address the figure of the average Frenchman, at least as he imagines it. Enough to reveal the dose of contempt that drives him towards a country that massively rejects his plan for drastic cuts in social spending.

Yet this new media appearance seems like a coup for nothing, given how inflexible he has remained about his €43.8 billion austerity plan. "In France, we haven't presented a balanced budget for 51 years. Our country must escape the curse of debt," he exclaimed to justify his intentions, ruling out any possibility of acting on revenue, notably by taxing the wealthiest, in particular through the Zucman tax (2% for assets exceeding €100 million).

And he continued: "It's not austerity, it's serious. I like figures, I'm a literary fake. We spent 100 last year, if we let it go we'll spend 105, we say let's make an effort to spend 101 or 102. It's not austerity!"

Asked about the possibility of making "compromises," particularly on his desire to eliminate two public holidays, the Prime Minister initially hesitated. "Two fewer public holidays is not working for free. It's giving a little more because our country is facing risks. It's extra working days for the country," he explained, before saying he was prepared to eliminate just one.

In a brief diversion of the interview by Sonia Mabrouk towards her obsessions with migration, François Bayrou reiterated his refusal "to make immigration the cause of the country's situation." A salutary leap forward? Not really. He then said he was "convinced that our immigration policy must evolve" to "control entries."