Monsieur François Bayrou, a secondary character and destined to remain so, is remarkable only for his perseverance in undermining the higher interests of France. He eminently possesses what the English call ‘nuisance value’.

At what point did his self-image begin to cloud his judgement? Here is a Béarnais, the son of a farmer, who, gifted for studies, became an agrégé in classical literature. At twenty-eight, he took his first steps in politics by entering the office of Monsieur Méhaignerie, Minister of Agriculture. At the same time, he joined the centrist party that Giscard d’Estaing created to serve his personal elevation. This party, which participated in overthrowing General de Gaulle in 1969, would become the UDF.

Monsieur Bayrou settled there and prospered. He was elected general councillor in his native department, then regional councillor. He was also an advisor to Monsieur Pierre Pfimlin, to the presidency of the European Assembly. Monsieur Pfimlin was an excellent man in every respect, who exercised very high functions with rectitude. He had only one fault: he was a centrist, that is to say, like all centrists, he was mistaken about the hierarchy of values.

He is credited with having made Paris lose its status as the capital of Europe. Indeed, it was agreed between Adenauer and de Gaulle that the institutions of the European Community would have their headquarters nearby. A large complex would be built in the near Paris region. On this, Pfimlin, an Alsatian, intervened, proclaiming: “Strasbourg, Strasbourg… the link between France and Germany, between the two cultures… reconciliation… Strasbourg, a symbolic city!” Could Alsace be insulted? The Parisian project was shelved.

The move was well-intentioned, but it was a misjudgement.

Paris, a great metropolis of the arts and business, as well as an international communications centre, had all the attractions for Members of the European Parliament, diplomats, and civil servants; Strasbourg, beautiful but provincial, with limited entertainment and above all poorly served, requiring changes of plane to reach its often foggy aerodrome, exercised little charm on the new community population. If the monthly sessions of Parliament – at what cost and for how long? – continue to be held there, everything else, commissions and services, has moved to Brussels and it is Brussels that has become the administrative capital of the Union.

Let us return to Monsieur Bayrou, who is following a fairly typical political path. Elected to parliament, he quickly showed a ministerial appetite by making education issues a specialty. He founded and chaired a permanent group to combat illiteracy. A laudable program. Unfortunately, during the time he was Minister of National Education, illiteracy continued to increase and the general level of education continued to decline. Was it during this period that he experienced a somewhat excessive expansion of his ego?

It is said that one night he woke up the members of his cabinet, urgently summoning them to the ministry, to consult them on a vision he had just had of his presidential future. The anecdote has been circulated with too much insistence for there not to be, at its origin, some reality.

Why am I dwelling so long on Monsieur Bayrou, when we have concerns that seem to be of greater importance? It is because, not content with creating disorder in our domestic policy, he is currently acting contrary to the interests of France in the European Parliament.

Monsieur Bayrou is a candidate for the presidency of the Republic: we know that. He has made it known urbi et orbi and, stubbornness being in his nature, there is every reason to believe that he will be one for life. He also ran in 2002 and, having arrived at the back of the pack, with 6.8%, he immediately put on the jersey with the bib number marked 2007.

Assuring that he is part of the majority in the National Assembly in order to keep his electorate, he keeps his parliamentary group on the fringes, under the pretext of refusing corporatisation; he never stops criticizing the government’s actions, often using the opposition’s arguments, and only votes for it with his fingertips, when he does not abstain, visibly waiting for its fall. Beautiful political logic! This is what Monsieur Bayrou calls cultivating one’s difference. When one benefits from such great support, one ends up preferring adversaries.

His programme? It is made up of nothing but worn-out words and formulas that have become hollow from being used too much. It is as if we had returned to the “more just, more humane Republic” of thirty years ago. Everything ages – even demagoguery. […]

What a waste! And all in keeping. Those who stick around François Bayrou for career interests, like those who stay there out of personal loyalty, expose themselves to serious disappointments.

In politics, I have no other criteria than services rendered to the country.

Prince Talleyrand said: “Without wealth, a nation is only poor; without patriotism, it is a poor nation.”

THERE ARE CITIES that defy the centuries; time does not change them. Empires succeed each other, civilisations leave their remains in them like geological strata, but they preserve their character through the ages, their peculiar ambience, the sound and rhythm which distinguish them from all other cities upon the earth. Naples is one of these cities, and it appears to the traveller today, as it was in the Middle Ages, and doubtless a thousand years before, half-African, half-Latin, with its terraced alleys, its street-cries, its smell of olive oil, charcoal, saffron and frying fish, its sun-coloured dust, the sound of bells ringing on the necks of horses and of mules.

The Greeks founded it, the Romans conquered it, the barbarians despoiled it, the Byzantines and the Normans each in turn took possession of it as masters. But they did no more than modify a little the architecture of its houses and add certain superstitions, a few legends, to the traditions of its streets.

The population is neither Greek, Roman nor Byzantine; the people are Neapolitan in perpetuity, a population distinct from all others in the world. Their gaiety is but a facade concealing the tragedy of poverty, their magniloquence an accent relieving the monotony of the daily round, their leisure a virtue in refusing to pretend to be busy when there is in fact nothing to do; its population is life-loving, meeting the setbacks of fate with guile, with a gift of speech and a contempt for all things military because peace never becomes boring. …

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