The French president, Emmanuel Macronappointed his centrist ally and veteran politician as prime minister this Friday François Bayrou73 years old, with the challenge of bringing together a parliamentary majority that prevents his fall and further aggravates the political crisis.
“The name of François Bayrou has emerged in recent days as the most consensual,” said Macron’s entourage, who commissioned him to “dialogue” with the rest of the parties, except for the extreme right and radical left, to achieve “stability.”
Bayrou, mayor of Pau, in the southwest of France and belonging to the MoDem formation, became Macron’s fourth prime minister in 2024 and will succeed the conservative Michel Barnier, 73, who fell on December 4 in a motion of censorship when trying to approve the budgets for 2025.
But it’s not easy for him. “Everyone is aware of the difficulty of the task,” Bayrou told the press before the transfer of powers scheduled for 4:00 p.m. GMT, advocating “reconciliation” to escape political instability.
Macron plunged France into a political crisis in June with an unexpected advance of the 2027 legislative elections, which left a National Assembly (lower house) without clear majorities and divided into three blocs: left, center-right and far-right.
Barnier governed without a majority with the centrist alliance of Macron and his conservative party The Republicans (LR), and depended in Parliament on the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who finally dropped him after only three months in office.
During the budget process, the extreme right supported a motion of censure presented by the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition, considering that the former Brexit negotiator was not responding to their demands.
The pressure is greater now. The EU’s second largest economy has high levels of public deficit and debt for the euro zone, and Barnier’s frustrated budgets provided for a sharp decrease in public spending to reassure the markets.
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What majority?
In this context, socialists, communists and environmentalists, allies of the radical left party La France Insoumise (LFI) in the NFP, opened themselves to discussing a government with Macron’s alliance and with LR, putting their left-wing coalition on the brink. of the breakup.
But they asked for a left-wing prime minister and a change of direction in government policy, especially when their coalition won the legislative elections. But that has not been the case and they have already ruled out entering the government.
“By appointing one of his close friends (…), Macron risks aggravating the political crisis,” warned the socialists, who called on Bayrou to commit to not approving laws by decree and not depending on the far right to avoid censorship.
LFI has already announced that it will present a motion of no confidence against Bayrou, while the extreme right said it would not do so “in principle”, if its demands are heard.
LR, which left the opposition in September to enter the government, conditioned its continuity to the “project” of the new prime minister, according to participants in a group meeting.
Although Macron could call new legislative elections starting in July, all parties are already thinking about the presidential election of 2027, for which he can no longer run, and are seeking to avoid ending up linked to the legacy of an unpopular president, but without appearing responsible for the election. political instability.
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Judicial process
Bayrou is an old acquaintance of the political class. His national consecration came with his appointment in 1993 as Minister of Education, in a right-wing government during the French presidency of the socialist François Mitterrand.
Since then, he chained the mandates of deputy, MEP, mayor as leader of his centrist formation called the Democratic Movement (MoDem) since 2007 and ran in the presidential election in France in 2002, 2007 and 2012, without success.
For the 2017 election he decided to support Macron, who emerged from the center of the political board with a reformist speech, and he reciprocated by naming him Minister of Justice, a position in which he only served 34 days.
A judicial investigation into the fraudulent hiring of assistants in the European Parliament forced him to leave. In February of this year, the court convicted MoDem but acquitted its founder in the name of “benefit of the doubt.”
Although the case remains open after the prosecution appealed the sentence, this did not prevent his appointment. The uncertainty now is whether it will achieve a parliamentary majority. The composition of the future government in the coming days and its priorities will be key.
Waiting for a new government to approve the budgets for 2025, the current acting Executive presented a “special law” to extend those for 2024 and be able to collect taxes.