French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday named Francois Bayrou his fourth prime minister for 2024, tasking the veteran centrist with leading the country out of its second major political crisis in the past six months.
The priority for Bayeru, a close Macron ally, will be passing a special law to implement the 2024 budget, with a more serious fight looming over a 2025 law early next year. Parliamentary opposition to the 2025 bill led to the fall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government.
Bayeru, 73, is expected to unveil his list of ministers in the coming days, but he may face the same existential difficulties as Barnier in forcing legislation through a hung parliament involving three warring factions. His closeness to the deeply unpopular Macron will also prove to be a weakness.
France’s growing political malaise has raised doubts over whether Macron will serve his second presidential term, which ends in 2027. It has also pushed up French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
Following Barnier’s expulsion, Macron spent several days talking to leaders ranging from conservatives to communists to garner support for Bayreu. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and far-left France Unbowed were excluded.
Any participation of the Socialist Party in the coalition may have to pay the price for Macron in next year’s budget.
“Now we will see how many billions the support for the Socialist Party will cost,” a government adviser said Friday.
No legislative elections before summer
Macron will be hoping Bayeru can stave off a no-confidence vote at least until July, when France will be able to hold a new parliamentary election, but his own future as president is essentially in question if the government falls again. Will go.
Bayrou, founder of the Democratic Movement (MODEM) party, which has been part of Macron’s ruling coalition since 2017 and has himself run for president three times, draws on his rural roots as the longtime mayor of the southwestern city of Pau. Are.
Macron appointed Bayrou justice minister in 2017, but he resigned a few weeks later amid an investigation into his party’s alleged fraudulent appointments of parliamentary assistants. This year he was acquitted of fraud charges.
Bayeru’s first real test will come early in the new year when lawmakers will need to pass a belt-tightening 2025 budget bill.
However, the fragmented nature of the National Assembly, which has become virtually unruly after Macron’s June snap election, means that Bayrou will have to live day-to-day at the mercy of the president’s opponents for the foreseeable future.
Barnier’s budget bill, which aimed to save 60 billion euros to reassure investors worried about France’s 6% deficit, was considered too stingy by the far-right and left, and the government was unable to find a way out of the impasse. The French have witnessed the failure. Borrowing costs are still high.
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