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First Council of Ministers of the Bayrou government, under the sign of “budgetary emergency”
This is François Bayrou's first Council of Ministers and the first of 2025 for Emmanuel Macron: the president brings together the new government of his centrist ally on Friday at the Elysée, already under pressure to adopt a budget after the censorship of Michel Barnier and his team. Like every new year, the members of the government first met at Place Beauvau, at the Ministry of the Interior, for the traditional back-to-school breakfast, where the host of the place, the Vendéen Bruno Retailleau, offered everyone a bottle of “trouspinette”, a wine of thorns. Another ritual, the government in tight ranks then joined on foot the village hall of the Elysée, a few dozen meters away, shortly before 10:00 a.m. Some of the ministers will then remain around the president for a Defense Council dedicated to Mayotte, three weeks after the passage of Cyclone Chido. “There is a path” to get out of “this period of instability”, “it is even better defined “you wouldn't believe it,” François Bayrou assured his ministers, according to his entourage. “If we are united, we will be able to remove a certain number of obstacles before us,” said the Prime Minister, who had placed his year under the auspices of a triptych “reconciliation, action, stability”.Mr. Bayrou, who hopes to last longer in Matignon than his predecessor, who remained in office for only three months, is similarly deprived of a majority in the National Assembly, having been unable to expand his government beyond the center and the right. A gap which he hopes to compensate for with the presence of political heavyweights, such as former Prime Ministers Elisabeth Borne (Education) and Manuel Valls (Overseas), and a few ministers who have, according to a government source, “a history” with the left, such as Eric Lombard (Economy) or François Rebsamen (Territorial planning). Several of their colleagues were out on Friday morning on the radio and TV morning shows, to set the tone for this first meeting of the government team. With a message hammered out in unison: “We need a budget”. – “Minimum service” -Because without a finance law since January 1, “France operates in minimum service”, affirmed on RTL Catherine Vautrin, in particular in charge of Labor and Health. “If we don't have a budget, we won't be able to take care of the residents (of the) neighborhoods,” said the new Minister of the City, Juliette Méadel, on TF1. Doubt also hangs over the drop in the price of electricity (-14% as of February 1) which “will depend on the adoption of the finance law”, warned Marc Ferracci, Minister of Industry and Energy, on RMC. The situation is therefore a “budgetary emergency”, said Aurore Bergé (Women-Men Equality), calling on France Inter for “unity and stability”. Emergency also for Mayotte, awaiting a bill promised at the start of the week by François Bayrou. The Prime Minister, who visited the archipelago with five ministers, announced a battery of measures to put this department, the poorest in France, back on its feet. But this text will not appear on the menu of this first Council of Ministers, as initially planned. It will be presented next week, even if this postponement should not have any impact on its examination by Parliament, which resumes its activities on January 13. – Grain de sel – The menu therefore risks being light at the table. the Elysée on Friday. A new government spokesperson, former Les Républicains senator Sophie Primas, will report on it. An exercise repatriated to the Elysée, at the request of François Bayrou, while his predecessor had chosen to relocate it to a building in the Prime Minister's services. To prepare for this first meeting of the government team, and with the aim his general policy declaration before the Assembly on January 14, the Prime Minister had a long lunch on Thursday with President Emmanuel Macron. Way of easing tensions between the two heads of the executive, while the head of state hesitated in December to appoint the boss of the MoDem, the latter then threatening to break their historic alliance. Since then, the president has not is not deprived of putting his grain of salt into the work of the government, during his wishes to the French. The new government “must be able to take a path of compromise to act”, France must “continue to be attractive” , “work and innovate more”, “continue to create jobs” and “ensure its growth while maintaining its finances”, he urged. The mark of a new relationship of “co-responsibility”, according to the new tenant of Matignon, who began its lease with a historically low popularity rating, according to the Ifop-Journal du Dimanche barometer published on December 22. are-gbh/jmt/bow
