François Bayrou

In Bayrou's youth, he was active in nonviolent movements and followed Gandhi disciple, Lanza del Vasto.[9]

Bayrou, a member of the Centre of Social Democrats (CDS), the Christian-democratic wing of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) confederation, was elected to the General Council of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in 1982 in the canton of Pau-Sud, then the French National Assembly four years later. After the victory of the RPR/UDF coalition in the 1993 legislative election, he became Education Minister in the cabinet led by Edouard Balladur. In this post, he proposed a reform allowing local authorities to subsidise private schools, which caused massive protests and was quashed by the Constitutional Council.

In 1989, after poor results in both the municipal elections and the European Parliament elections, Bayrou and twelve other centre-right parliamentarians including Philippe Séguin, Michel Noir, Alain Carignon, Étienne Pinte, Michel Barnier, François Fillon, Charles Millon, Dominique Baudis, François d'Aubert, Philippe de Villiers and Bernard Bosson demanded reform of the system at the RPR and the UDF, criticising the most prominent politicians of these parties including former president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. They called for the formation of a new right-wing party to unite the UDF and the RPR into a single entity. Ideological differences between members of this group led to members leaving, though d'Estaing endorsed Bayrou to become UDF general secretary in 1991.[10]

Despite supporting Édouard Balladur's candidacy in the 1995 presidential election, Bayrou remained Education Minister following Jacques Chirac's election and the formation of a new government headed by Alain Juppé. Following the majority for the Plural Left in the 1997 legislative election, Bayrou returned to opposition and became president of the UDF in 1998, transforming it into a unified party rather than a union of smaller parties.

In 2002 François Bayrou rejected proposals to merge the UDF with the Rally for the Republic (RPR), into a new entity that later became the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). As a result, many UDF members left to join the UMP.

Bayrou was increasingly critical of the direction taken by the UMP-led government, which he described as out of touch with the average Frenchman. He denounced the de facto two-party system, in which the Socialist Party and the RPR (later UMP) alternate. Instead, Bayrou called for a pluralist system in which other parties would also contribute.[11]

On 16 May 2006, Bayrou supported a motion of no confidence sponsored by Socialist deputies calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's government following the Clearstream affair.[12] As de Villepin's UMP had an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the motion failed. Following Bayrou's support for this measure, France's television authority classified him as a member of the parliamentary opposition for timing purposes. However, after Bayrou protested, he was classified as a member of neither the majority nor the opposition.

Bayrou contested the presidency again in 2007. Most commentators had expected the election to be fought primarily between Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal of the Parti Socialiste. However, Bayrou's increasing support in polls in February complicated the "Sarko-Ségo" scenario, and led to speculation that the Parti Socialiste candidate would fail to progress to the second round for a second consecutive election, following the defeat of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in 2002 by National Front leader Jean Marie Le Pen. Ultimately, Bayrou finished in third place in the election with 18.57% of the vote (6,820,119 votes), behind Sarkozy and Royal, the best performance by the UDF in a Presidential election since 1981. Bayrou declared that he could not endorse either Sarkozy or Royal in the second round, although he indicated that Sarkozy was the worse of the two.

After the 2007 election, Bayrou announced his intention to form a new centrist party, the Democratic Movement (MoDem). The majority of UDF politicians did not follow him, and instead formed a rival party, the New Centre, which pledged to support an alliance with the UMP. However, most of the UDF's grassroots membership remained with Bayrou and joined MoDem. In the subsequent legislative elections in June 2007, MoDem came third with 7.6% of the vote. Although an increase on the UDF share of the poll of 4.9% in the 2002 elections, MoDem won only four seats, including Bayrou's own seat. The other parliamentarians elected on the party's list were Jean Lasalle, Thierry Benoit (who has since left the party, to join the New Centre) and Abdoulatifou Aly. The establishment of MoDem led to the formal dismantling of the UDF alliance on 30 November.

François Bayrou at a meeting in Marseille in April 2012

On 18 August 2011, Bayrou released a book, 2012. Etat d'urgence, in which he discussed how and why the economic crisis happened, and outlined the top priorities of his next presidential program: production and education.

François Bayrou confirmed his candidacy for the 2012 presidential election on 25 November 2011, in an interview with journalist Laurence Ferrari on her show Parole Directe on TF1.[13]

His supporters included:

• Jean Arthuis, president of the Centrist Alliance, president of the Senate Finance Committee (2002–2011)[14]
• Bernard Bosson, Mayor of Annecy (1977–2007), member of the National Assembly of France for Haute-Savoie (1986–2007)[15]
• Pierre Albertini, Mayor of Rouen
• Anne-Marie Idrac, Secretary of State for International Trade under Nicolas Sarkozy (2008–2010)[16]
• Alain Lambert, Budget Minister (2002–2004)
• Daniel Garrigue, member of the National Assembly of France for Dordogne and former press secretary for Dominique de Villepin
• Jean-François Kahn, author and former director of the newspaper Marianne[17]

Bayrou was eliminated in the first round, receiving around half of his vote share from 2007; he announced that he would be voting for Socialist François Hollande in the runoff.[18]

On 22 February 2017, Bayrou announced that he would not contest the 2017 presidential election, instead endorsing the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron of En Marche!.[19] The alliance surprised French political pundits and rival candidates.[19] Part of the agreement was Macron's commitment to support a clean government law proposed by Bayrou.[19] Bayrou said that France was "at extreme risk", requiring an "exceptional response",[19] adding that the alliance did not mean that MoDem would be subsumed by En Marche![19]

On 17 May 2017, Bayrou was appointed as Minister of Justice in the first Philippe government.[20]

Le Canard enchaîné published information that Democratic Movement politician Marielle de Sarnez had been paid for work she had not actually done, embroiling Bayrou in a fictitious jobs scandal.[21] France Info later reported that MoDem had "over a dozen" fictitious jobs in the European Parliament.[22]

Bayrou resigned several days before the 2017 legislative election, with Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announcing following the election that Bayrou would not be a part of the second Philippe government, only 35 days after he had taken the post.[23][24]

In February 2022, Bayrou created what he calls a "sponsorship bank", joined by a few hundred local officials, willing to give their signatures to candidates for the presidential election struggling to obtain them, even if they represent a large part of the public according to opinion polls.[25] Later that month, he announced that he was prepared to give his signature to help far-right candidate Marine Le Pen to stand in the presidential election.[26]