Institut Montaigne makes public policy recommendations to advance its agenda, which broadly reflects that of the large French companies that fund it.
[4] This work was later completed by “Passion française”, a political essay based on a series of interviews conducted in the cities of Roubaix and Marseille to meet candidates of foreign origin who ran for the 2012 legislative elections.
[12] Indeed, a March to April advertising campaign by the Montaigne institute put forward a proposal which closely matched some remarks made by the president-candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, leading to an investigation by the French media regulator (CSA).
[17] Following the intervention of the CSA, BFMTV, BFM Radio or even RMC cease broadcasting for the duration of the campaign of the spots of the Institut Montaigne in favor of Nicolas Sarkozy's proposals.
[19][20] The quality of this work has been disputed; for Médiapart "the ideological presuppositions, the absence of a guarantee on the impartiality of the calculations or the secret kept on the identity of the" encryptors "cast suspicion on this project".
[20] During the campaign, La Chaîne européenne (LCP) had Laurent Bigorgne, then director of the Montaigne Institute, as editorial writer for his political program Thèmes de campagne.
[21] This program, presented by Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, received, from March to June 2012, Pascal Lamy, Nicole Notat, Thierry Breton and Jacques Attali.
Laurent Bigorgne was appointed in June 2018 to the Public Action Committee 2022, installed by the prime minister to design the state reform project, then was invited to debate with Emmanuel Macron on March 22, 2019, with sixty-five other intellectuals, to deal with the yellow vests crisis.
The long-time director of the institute, Laurent Bigorgne, was accused in February 2022 of drugging a younger staff member whom he was sexually pursuing with MDMA.