“We need to debureaucratize our administration,” says Horizons candidate for Paris mayor Pierre-Yves Bournazel

The Prime Minister is changing his method to overcome the blockages on the budget. He takes his strategies in small steps. Is this the right approach for you?

We must find a compromise in the National Assembly since there is no majority after the dissolution of 2024. Quite simply, we need a compass. And I think that the right compass is to find savings for this budget. There is something to be done in our country. We have too much bureaucracy in many areas, whether in the state civil service or in the territorial civil service, there are sometimes duplications. We must debureaucratize our administration to instead support field agents, reduce the country’s debt and avoid increasing taxes because we need competitiveness, we need to support our businesses and we need to protect the purchasing power of the French.

Roland Lescure talks about tax witchcraft in La Tribune. What do you think of the budget as it currently stands in the Assembly? Can it be voted on?

I don’t know and that’s the problem, it’s a bit of a mess. And so we need clear ideas. I believe that the compass, once again, is to protect the competitiveness of our businesses, to protect the purchasing power of the French. We already have a compulsory withholding rate that is too high in France compared to our partners or our competitors. So we must have the courage, the lucidity to make the right decisions and the right decisions, it is to debureaucratize and reduce public spending.

Is it necessary at all costs to find a compromise precisely to prevent this from happening? So that there is stability?

Everyone must have a sense of responsibility, we need a republican revival, we must prioritize the interest of our country, the general interest before serving our party or political group.

Are you, like Édouard Philippe, calling for the resignation of the President of the Republic?

I said it to the detractors who are trying to play on this in this Paris campaign. I tell them my loyalty is non-negotiable. My loyalty to Édouard Philippe. He is a statesman and therefore I am a loyal man, I am a faithful man. I am a candidate for mayor of Paris. And as a candidate for mayor of Paris, I unite. I bring together Gabriel Attal, I bring together Édouard Philippe. This is proof that I am a man of unity. I am going to bring together in this campaign men and women who do not think the same thing on a national level. And that’s very happy. And if they wish to support me, it is for Paris and it is for Parisians. I am not going to get into these controversies of detractors who seek to divide, to divide, rather than to produce ideas. This campaign, I say that my loyalty to Édouard Philippe is not negotiable, because I see clearly that some people have fun wanting to create divisions, where I am a man of unity, a man of appeasement.

There is an Elabe poll for La Tribune which appeared this morning which puts Édouard Philippe down by 5 points. Doesn’t he pay for this strategy of saying that the president must resign?

We look at all the polls, but polls come and go. You must always be very careful. What I note is that the extreme right is indeed achieving very high scores in its polls. And so it is to know what the solution is, what is the future vision for the country, what are the projects, the massive project that you will want to bring together to bring together French people. Édouard Philippe is a statesman, he takes the time to meet the French, to listen to them, to build this project. I believe that he has the necessary qualities to bring together, to unite, to federate in this fight which will be decisive for the future of the nation.

To stand out from the National Rally which is in the lead, isn’t the best strategy to vote with the National Rally as the Horizon group did in the hemicycle this week on the Franco-Algerian agreements, giving them a historic victory?

We will try to put things back in place. Édouard Philippe was the first to say that it was necessary to overhaul the agreements between France and Algeria, because these agreements are unbalanced and derogate from common rights. No more, no less. Then, the left mixes its voices well with those of the RN on a certain number of subjects. She did it on pensions, she does it on tax issues or on other subjects. This is what I have to say to the detractors.