Stéphane Lavoué / Pasco & co

It was almost 11 pm in Prime Minister François Bayrou's office on April 9. The night was mild, and the windows were open to the tranquil garden of the Hôtel de Matignon, the prime minister's office and residence. France's growth had just been revised downward, Donald Trump was about to backtrack on tariffs and the Ukrainian president was worried about Russian strikes in his country's east, but all the world's turmoil seemed to have stopped short at the doors to Bayrou's office. He grabbed a copy of a page from the daily newspaper L'Eclair, from May 2, 1936, that was slipped to him. A quick glance at the photo illustrating the article was enough: "Indeed, that's him. I have the original of the photo at home. A candidate in the legislative elections against Léon Blum," the Jewish Socialist head of France's pre- and post-World War II governments.

The man in the photo was Lucien Bayrou (1883-1949), François's paternal great-uncle. The prime minister had inherited Lucien's name at birth, in 1951, as a middle name after those of his grandfather, one of his uncles, and another great-uncle: François, René, Jean, Lucien Bayrou. Lucien was the intellectual of the family, the adventurer and the first to go off to study, leaving the family stronghold of Bordères, near the French Pyrénées and the city of Pau, and the most political of all the Bayrous. Yet, François had never mentioned him, though he prides himself on being able to trace his family tree back to the 18^th century, and believes in invisible connections between the souls of the living and the dead.

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