"He will respond point by point": Fesneau calm before Bayrou's hearing in the Bétharram affair

Was François Bayrou aware of the physical and sexual violence perpetrated within the Catholic school Notre-Dame de Batharram over the decades? This is what the Prime Minister and former Minister of Education will have to explain to the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Violence in Schools this Wednesday, May 14.

Under political and legal pressure - he is accused of lying before the national assembly - he remains calm according to those around him, as Marc Fesneau, vice-president of the Modem, demonstrated on RTL.

"He's not playing his role. Some people want to use it for political gain. We can clearly see that Paul Vannier (LFI, Editor's note), the chairman of the commission of inquiry, has been doing this from the beginning."

The Prime Minister's close friend, whom he has "known for a long time," knows that he will "put things back in place (...) that he will respond point by point." His deep conviction is that his Modem counterpart did not lie.

Before MPs in February, he swore that he had "never been informed of anything, of violence or, a fortiori, sexual violence. Never."

The version of the mayor of Pau is, however, contradicted by documents and testimonies collected under oath. On February 5, 2025, Mediapart published several documents and testimonies affirming that François Bayrou had been aware, since the end of the 1990s, of accusations of sexual assault in the establishment where his own daughter, herself a victim, was educated .

Then a former judge, a former police officer, and a teacher testified under oath and contradicted François Bayrou's version of events. "It doesn't bother me," Marc Fesneau dismissed in the face of this pileup. The Prime Minister will have the opportunity to deliver his version of events this Wednesday, May 14.