You cannot improvise as a political leader. When François Bayrou, from the top of his Himalaya, calls on the French people and the political class to take responsibility for the budget, his pleas are as convincing as those of an infantry general whose only experience is playing soldiers when he was a child. He lacks the most important thing: the power of conviction that sweeps everything in its path.

This is François Bayrou's fundamental problem. He has such a high opinion of himself that he manages to convince himself that his words alone will resonate so strongly with the French people that they will take to the streets to beg him to stay in office.

This is far from the truth. He imagines himself to be a savior, but in fact his appointment was simply a matter of bureaucracy, circumstances, and the need to fill the void so that the opposition would not take over Matignon.

France never really needed François Bayrou. If there really is such a thing as Bayrou's music, it resembles a harmless children's song, a kind of saccharine melody that is not without charm, but is so uninfectious that it inevitably lulls the unfortunate person forced to listen to it to sleep.

François Bayrou's words leave no trace. They are tedious, just as tedious as the speeches at funerals, when some distant cousin launches into a eulogy whose pretentiousness and length provoke such a deep sense of despair in those present that we end up reproaching the deceased for subjecting us to such an ordeal.

Let's bet that if Winston Churchill had had the eloquence of François Bayrou, the United Kingdom would not have lasted long before falling under the German yoke.

It is not enough to borrow the dramatic accents of tragedy to convince your audience of the importance of a moment. It is necessary to embody that speech, to embody it with such force, with such authenticity, that everyone who hears it feels in their bones how decisive that moment is.

François Bayrou has been on the political scene for too long not to carry with him a whole set of prejudices that make his speech inaudible.

But although the prime minister's latest statements were bellicose and delivered in a serious and penetrating tone, they had no effect other than to provoke deep boredom and even outright indifference. Persistence and willpower are not enough. Something else is needed—the feeling that we are in the presence of a person whose desire to tell the truth is accompanied by a genuine movement of the soul, by sincerity, the fruit of consciousness and truth.

It is a matter of charm, of talent, of that "something" that distinguishes the ordinary person from the exceptional personality.

The latter has something like an inner strength, but at the same time a natural one, which gives his words that kind of obviousness capable of seducing even his most stubborn opponents.

In spite of itself, the mind finds itself captivated by speech which, regardless of differences of opinion, it feels affects it completely.

With François Bayrou, the speech is soft, tasteless, and atonic. The Bearnese may repeat ten, a hundred, a thousand times that the situation is serious, but his speech, due to the inertia it spreads, will only lightly touch the consciousness. He is what he is: honest but calculating, proud but with an exaggerated pride that hides a feeling of weakness, stubborn but with a courage that stems from self-confidence, in which there is more of a desire to impress the other than to truly convince them of the correctness of his reasoning.

However, François Bayrou has the merit of being consistent—especially on the issue of debt—a quality that is as rare in politics as fidelity in a womanizer.

But that is not enough. To claim to represent a country and lead it to profound reforms, one must sometimes have the courage to step outside the bounds of propriety, to step outside oneself in order to shake people's consciousness.

Bayrou is a prisoner of Bayrou. He has been in politics for too long not to carry with him a whole set of prejudices that make his speech inaudible. And since his speech is clumsy and his expression stiff, he fails to convince anyone outside the circle of his loyal followers. This is probably unfortunate for the country, but a person can never escape what they are. Sooner or later, once they take on responsibilities, their shortcomings come to light, and with them their weaknesses and vices. | BGNES

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Laurent Sagalovich, article for the Slate portal.