As Budget Impasse Grinds On, Macron Appoints a New Cabinet

 

As Budget Impasse Grinds On, Macron Appoints a New Cabinet

 

President Emmanuel Macron of France named the choices less than three weeks after the previous government collapsed. He had already picked François Bayrou as prime minister.

 

Richard Fausset Aurelien Breeden

By Richard Fausset and Aurelien Breeden

Richard Fausset reported from Rennes, France; and Aurelien Breeden from Marseille, France.

Dec. 23, 2024

Updated 3:22 p.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/world/europe/macron-new-cabinet-france.html

 

President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday appointed a new cabinet less than three weeks after the previous government collapsed over a bitter budgetary stalemate.

 

It was unclear how long the government might last or whether it would be able to assuage broader concerns about political instability in Europe at a time when the region faces significant security and economic challenges.

 

The center-right orientation of the new French government roughly mirrors that of the previous one, which lasted less than three months after coming under attack from the left and the far right in Parliament. It demonstrates that Mr. Macron and his new prime minister, François Bayrou, remain committed to the idea that France can be governed from the center, even amid a period of intense political polarization. But choosing another government with a rightward slant may make it hard to bring left-leaning lawmakers in on a much-needed deal to fund the government next year.

 

At the very least, the announcement of new ministers gives France a functioning government at a time when Germany, another cornerstone of the European Union, remains adrift. The German government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed this month, and new elections are likely to be held in late February.

 

The political turmoil in the two heavyweight countries of Europe comes at a particularly perilous time for the continent. The election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president for a second time has spurred concerns about whether the United States will continue to support Ukraine in the war against Russia and about whether Mr. Trump might upend NATO.

 

There are also growing worries about anemic economic growth in Europe compared to the United States and about the prospect of Mr. Trump’s following through on threats to impose tariffs that could set off a trade war.

 

France, which is struggling with high debt and a widening deficit, has been stuck in neutral as its politicians have proven incapable of agreeing on a budget for the coming year.

 

The previous prime minister, Michel Barnier, a conservative, proposed a series of tax increases and spending cuts to curb the ballooning public debt. But those efforts went down in flames as powerful forces from both the left and the far right in the fractious lower house of Parliament refused to go along. Mr. Barnier resigned this month after a no-confidence vote.

 

It remains unclear how Mr. Bayrou, a seasoned centrist who was appointed on Dec. 13, might change course and solve the budget impasse.

 

The government continues to operate in the absence of a 2025 budget under special legislation passed on Dec. 16 that avoids disruption of public services. But every day without a true budget adds to the country’s debt problems.

 

“France needs a budget,” Mr. Bayrou said recently on social media. “We should adopt one very quickly, with the objective of mid-February.”

 

One significant holdover from the last government is Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, a conservative who supports crackdowns on illegal immigration and the drug trade. The appointment of another tough-talking politician, Gérald Darmanin, as justice minister signals that the new government will continue to emphasize law and order, in an effort to outflank the far right on that issue. Mr. Darmanin previously served as interior minister under Mr. Macron.

 

Élisabeth Borne, a member of Mr. Macron’s party, Renaissance, was named to the cabinet and given a wide brief, including education and research. Ms. Borne served as prime minister of France from May 2022 to January 2024, when she resigned amid a cabinet shake-up.

 

A left-leaning technocrat, Ms. Borne presided over an unpopular law that raised the retirement age and an immigration law that was supported by the right but that upset some of her own ministers.

 

Two other key members from the previous government, Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, were kept on in an apparent effort to project stability in foreign policy at a time of international tension and war.

 

Mr. Bayrou is a founder and leader of the Mouvement Démocrate, a centrist party that is part of a coalition alongside Renaissance.

 

“I am very proud of the team presented tonight,” Mr. Bayrou wrote on social media on Monday night. “A collective of experience to reconcile and renew trust with all of the French people.”

 

In a television interview on Monday night, Mr. Bayrou spoke of “the most difficult” situation that France has faced since World War II, with a budget crisis, no clear political majority, and a time when “a large number of French people think they have been left aside.”

 

Solving these problems, he said, requires “personalities of moderate sensibilities, balanced, and who believe in the rule of law.”

 

Under the French Constitution, the president chooses the prime minister and appoints cabinet members on the prime minister’s recommendation.

 

Mr. Macron remains unpopular in France and has for the most part stayed out of the budget debate, which is the prerogative of the prime minister and cabinet. Even if Mr. Bayrou is able to find a compromise on the spending plan, it may do little to restore the president’s flagging reputation.

 

As expected, no cabinet posts were offered to — or demanded by — either the leftist France Unbowed party or the hard-right National Rally, which joined a leftist coalition in the vote that sealed Mr. Barnier’s fate this month.

 

In the days before the new government was announced, Marine Le Pen, one of the leaders of the National Rally, seemed to indicate some willingness to work with Mr. Bayrou, noting that in a recent meeting, he had seemed to listen when she discussed her voters’ concerns about their spending power and immigration issues.

 

On Monday night on social media, Ms. Le Pen said the new government suffers from a “clear lack of legitimacy,” and must now, “change its methods, listen and understand the opposition to construct a budget that takes into account the choices expressed at the ballot box.”

 

On Monday, Pierre Jouvet, the secretary general of the Socialist Party, said that his party would not enter into any agreement to tolerate the new administration unless Mr. Bayrou’s government agreed to suspend the 2023 law raising the retirement age in France, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. The law, which was pushed through by Mr. Macron over fierce protest, raised the retirement age in France to 64, from 62.

 

In elections this summer, Ms. Le Pen’s party and its allies claimed 142 seats in the 577-member lower house of Parliament. Mr. Macron’s centrist party and its allies won 165 seats. The biggest victor was a left-wing alliance that included France Unbowed and the Socialist Party. It won 193 seats, fueled in part by voters’ concerns about the rising political power of the hard right.

 

Those numbers have changed slightly since then through by-elections and resignations, but the essential power structure remains the same.

 

Many on the left said they felt angry and betrayed when Mr. Macron went on to choose the conservative Mr. Barnier and his short-lived cabinet that tilted the country rightward. That anger is likely to persist.

 

In an interview with Le Parisien newspaper published on Friday, the founder of France Unbowed, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, accused Mr. Macron of failing to recognize the left’s gains in the elections and of continuing to support policies that favored the rich.

 

Mr. Mélenchon predicted more of the same from the new government. And that, he said, would seal the fate of the new prime minister and his administration.

 

“François Bayrou,” he said, “will not make it through the winter.”

 

Richard Fausset, based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice. More about Richard Fausset

 

Aurelien Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France. More about Aurelien Breeden