Macron
ally François Bayrou appointed new French prime minister
Veteran
centrist is the fourth French prime minister this year as country struggles
with growing political crisis
Guardian
international staff
Fri 13 Dec
2024 11.46 GMT
François
Bayrou, a veteran centrist and ally of president Emmanuel Macron, has been
appointed French prime minister, after last week’s historic vote of
no-confidence ended the beleaguered and short-lived minority coalition of the
rightwing Michel Barnier.
Taking
office, Bayrou said he recognised the serious problem of public debt in France
and the need for parliament to agree a budget. He said the task was so
mountainous it was like politically climbing the Himalayas. He said he wanted
to break down the “glass wall” between politicians and voters who had lost
trust. There was a need to reconcile France and fight discrimination, he said
during a handover ceremony with his predecessor.
Bayrou, 73,
is the leader of the centrist MoDem party and a political heavyweight from
south-western France who calls himself a “man of the countryside”. A former
education minister, and mayor of the south-western town of Pau, he has been an
ally and close confidente to Emmanuel Macron since he swept to power in 2017.
Bayrou is
the fourth French prime minister this year as France has struggled with a
growing political crisis in a divided parliament. Barnier’s government was
ousted last week after only three months in office, and Macron wants to avoid a
new government facing the same fate.
Since Macron
called an inconclusive snap election in June, the French parliament has been
divided between three groups with no absolute majority. A left alliance took
the largest number of votes but fell short of an absolute majority; Macron’s
centrist grouping suffered losses but is still standing; and the far-right
National Rally gained seats but was held back from power by tactical voting
from the left and centre.
France's
outgoing Prime Minister Michel Barnier (left) listens to newly-appointed Prime
Minister Francois Bayrou speaking during the handover ceremony at the Hotel
Matignon in Paris
Those
divisions remain and the first task of the new prime minister is to appoint a
government that can work with parliament to pass a full budget for 2025.
Thomas
Cazeneuve, a centrist MP from Macron’s party, had described Bayrou as an
experienced politician who had “the art of compromise”. Gabriel Attal, the
former prime minister who currently heads Macron’s party in parliament, said of
Bayrou: “At such a difficult moment for France, I know he has the qualities to
defend the national interest and built the crucial stability French people
want.”
Jordan
Bardella, the president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National
Rally party, said his party would not immediately back a no-confidence vote in
the new government. But he said: “This new prime minister must understand that
he has no majority in parliament”. Bardella said his party still had “red
lines” on the budget and the new prime minister must talk to all political
groups. “The ball is in François Bayrou’s court,” he said.
The
Socialist party wrote to Bayrou laying down conditions for not joining a
no-confidence vote against him. The party said he must undertake not to push
through laws without a parliament vote. Socialists said they would not accept
any government positions.
Bayrou, a
political veteran, had raised hackles on both the left – who say he will
continue Macron’s policies - and on the right, where he is personally disliked
by the influential former president Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he ran against in the
2007 presidential race.
Politicians
on the left had earlier criticised the choice of Bayrou, saying his appointment
would mean “continuity” for Macron and did not respect the snap election result
in which the left alliance won the most number of votes even if it fell short
of a majority.
Manon Aubry,
of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI), told Europe 1 her
party’s view of Bayou: “He is the very embodiment of Macronism. How is it that
when Emmanuel Macron loses an election he wants, at any price, to impose the
colour and continuity of his own politics? … That does not work”.
Mathilde
Panot, who heads the LFI parliamentary group, said she would call for a
no-confidence vote.
The
Socialist Boris Vallaud had said that if Macron appointed someone from his own
centrist grouping “it risked worsening the political and institutional crisis”
that the president had created.
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