PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday named Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of 2024, tasking the veteran centrist with leading the country out of its second major political crisis in the past six months.
The priority for Bayrou, a close ally of Macron, will be to pass a special law to extend the 2024 budget, while a tougher battle over the 2025 legislation looms early next year. 2025 brought about the fall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier's government.
Bayrou, 73, is expected to present his list of ministers in the coming days, but will likely face the same existential difficulties as Barnier in guiding legislation through a non-consensus parliament made up of three warring blocs. His proximity to the deeply unpopular Macron will also prove a vulnerability.
Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, said they would not call for an immediate vote of no confidence against Bayrou.
France's festering political unrest has raised doubts about whether Macron will complete his second presidential term, which ends in 2027. It has also raised French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump prepares to return to the white presidency. Home.
Macron spent the days after Barnier's overthrow speaking to leaders from conservatives to communists, seeking to secure support for Bayrou. Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party and the far-left France Insoumise party were excluded.
Any participation by the Socialist Party in a coalition could cost Macron next year's budget.
“Now we will see how many billions the support of the Socialist Party will cost,” a government adviser said on Friday.
There are no legislative elections before the elections
Macron hopes Bayrou can avoid votes of no confidence until at least July, when France will be able to hold a new parliamentary election, but his own future as president will inevitably be called into question if the government falls again.
Bayrou, founder of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party, which has been part of Macron's ruling alliance since 2017, has run for president three times, drawing on his rural roots as mayor of the southwestern city of Pau. .
Macron appointed Bayrou justice minister in 2017, but he resigned just weeks later amid an investigation into his party's alleged fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants. He was acquitted of fraud charges this year.
The first real test for Bayrou will come early in the new year, when lawmakers need to pass a 2025 budget adjustment bill.
However, the fragmented nature of the National Assembly, which became almost ungovernable after Macron's snap election in June, means Bayrou will likely live day to day, at the mercy of the president's opponents, for the foreseeable future.
Barnier's draft budget, which sought to save €60 billion to calm investors increasingly concerned about France's 6% deficit, was seen as too greedy by the far right and left, and the government's failure to Finding a way out of the stagnation has caused the French's borrowing costs to rise even further.
