Little did
I suspect when I wrote that I hoped François Bayrou would do no harm as the Minister
of Justice (“Putting his best foot forward” – May 22) that the only harm he
would do would be to himself! This week, he resigned from the government, only
a month after taking office, following the resignation of two other ministers and members of
his party, MoDEM. We are told that he remains on good terms with President
Macron. The reasons for his resignation say as much about him and his career as a party leader as it does about the shifts in public opinion.
The reason
for his resignation was the opening of a preliminary judicial investigation
into allegations of fiddling European Parliament allowances. Six members of his
MoDEM party were elected to the Parliament in 2009. Bayrou was not one of the
six but at the time he was, and still is, the leader of his party. Each MEP is entitled to three parliamentary
assistants to help with work on European affairs and each is paid about €7800
a month. With such generous allowances, it is of course tempting for any leader
of a national party to use some of the money to pay party employees in the
home country, in this case France, to discharge normal party duties that have little
or nothing to do with European affairs. This is precisely what Bayrou’s party
is accused of. One of the six MEPs, Corinne Lepage, a former minister and
respected lawyer specialised in environmental matters, later resigned from the
party and explained in a book (“Les Mains Propres” - Editions Autrement,
2015) how the party had deliberately diverted EP allowances in this way and that
Bayrou not only knew about it but actively encouraged it in order to inject much needed funds into the party’s coffers. Curiously, her book went more
or less unnoticed at the time, by the media at least. It was only this year, with
the presidential election campaign in full swing, that Marine le Pen, another former MEP who is also
accused of fiddling allowances, denounced other parties in
France, including MoDEM, for doing the same. The media suddenly started taking
an interest. This past week, following the routine resignation of Edouard
Philippe’s first government after the parliamentary elections, in the
expectation that it would be immediately re-appointed, the Minister of Defence,
Sylvie Goulard, former MEP and member of MoDEM, who had made a promising start to her ministerial career,
surprisingly ruled herself out of the new government, stating that she wanted to be free to defend
herself in the allowances investigation and claiming that she had always acted in good faith as an MEP. This was apparently a coded message to her MoDEM colleagues
that she would not cover the party’s misdeeds and that if the investigation went
further, she would say exactly what she had been asked, or obliged, to do by
her party’s leadership. This statement clearly put pressure on Bayrou himself
who, ironically, was about to present draft legislation on greater transparency
and integrity in public life! (la moralisation
de la vie publique). He chose, naturally enough, to fall before he was pushed,
together with his No. 2, Marielle de Sarnez, who had also been appointed a minister
in the same government, and who is one of the six MEPs accused of
fiddling.
Whether the
preliminary investigation leads to Bayrou himself being placed under formal
investigation (mis en examen) or not,
this whole episode shows that public opinion is increasingly intolerant of politicians
who fiddle their expenses or otherwise abuse their privileges. I wrote in a previous
post (“The slow revenge of Eva Joly” – March 22) that France is now moving slowly
but surely towards more Nordic standards of public life. The latest events are
likely to speed things up. As a journalist stated very aptly on the radio this
morning, just a few years ago a minister would only have to resign if he was actually
convicted of fiddling expenses or tax evasion. More recently, ministers placed
under formal investigation have been expected to resign. Thanks probably to the
attitude of François Fillon, who said that he would no longer be a candidate for
the presidency if he were placed under formal investigation but then did the
opposite when he was, public opinion has shifted even further. This time, three
ministers have resigned only after being named as suspects in a preliminary
investigation. An opinion poll taken two days after Bayrou’s resignation shows
that nearly 60% of respondents consider he has done the right thing. Inasmuch
as President Macron is thought to be behind it, it has not done his approval
ratings any harm either.
The
legislation on more transparency and integrity in public life will now be taken
up by the new Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, a respected legal
practitioner, sometime local politician and member of the French Constitutional
Council, little known outside her profession. As Emmanuel Macron continues to stoke
the fires of his peaceful revolution, the sparks are beginning to fly in all
directions. The labour unions will probably be the next to feel the heat…. but
then that is a story that is yet to be told.
Oh Lord, would that politicians in the United States showed a fragment of this sense of public decency!
ReplyDeleteI don't think they would in France, Bob, were it not for relentless pressure of public opinion reflected by the media!
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