The Bayrou government is announced this weekend, after final negotiations at Matignon and at the Élysée which should prove decisive. The list of ministers has been refined in recent days and the leaks continue…
The essentials
- The Bayrou government should be unveiled this weekend, following a complex casting process and negotiations which continue at Matignon and at the Élysée this Saturday.
- The casting of François Bayrou would include a good number of former ministers, such as Bruno Retailleau, Sébastien Lecornu, Rachida Dati or Jean-Noël Barrot. The returns of Élisabeth Borne and Gérald Darmanin are mentioned with insistence, like that of the ex-socialist François Rebsamen, Minister of Labor under François Hollande.
- The list of ministers of the new government will include some surprises as announced by several media. The names of Thierry Breton (Economy) or Pierre Moscovici (Foreign Affairs) were for example mentioned, without certainty. The Bayrou government would also have suffered numerous refusals from left-wing figures.
And directly
09:34 – Aziz Senni tipped for Labor or SMEs
Does this name mean nothing to you? It's normal. Aziz Senni is an entrepreneur close to François Bayrou, but unknown to the general public. According to several sources cited by Le Parisien, he could inherit a ministry or a secretariat of state, labor or SMEs. He has been in François Bayrou's entourage for several years and was even a candidate in the legislative elections in 2007 in the 8th constituency of Yvelines. He is the author of “The social elevator is broken, I took the stairs” (Ed. Archipel).
20/12/24 – 11:09 p.m. – LR were to meet at 10 p.m. with the Prime Minister
END OF LIVE – According to an article from Figaro published in the evening, a call between François Bayrou and the LR was to take place at 10 p.m. this evening so that the Prime Minister gives his commitments to the right-wing party. The opportunity also for the Republicans to reaffirm their conditions for entry into the future government.
“The Republican right is ready to participate in government provided that it has the means to implement its convictions: the recognition of work rather than the abuses of welfare, the reduction of public spending rather than tax increases , order in our streets and at our borders rather than laxity and uncontrolled immigration, the reestablishment of local public services – starting with schools and health – rather than bureaucracy and standards… These are our cardinal convictions meeting the expectations of a vast majority of French people,” they wrote just a few hours before the call, which ultimately has not yet taken place, the newspaper indicates.
To go further
The appointment of a new Prime Minister will not change anything, even if a new stage is launched. The political crisis that France has been going through since this summer is not ready to end. The resignation of Michel Barnier, imposed by the government censure voted by the deputies on December 4, reminded those who had forgotten that the executive has always been very fragile. Emmanuel Macron's choice to appoint Michel Barnier to Matignon, after a failed dissolution, gave the keys to the National Rally. Without the implicit support or let it happen of the RN, the next government will not last much longer. The government is facing political and arithmetic reality: its line is very much in the minority in the National Assembly, the deputies of the opposition parties are more numerous than those of the “common base” parties.
Emmanuel Macron had also prepared for the fall of Michel Barnier's government at the end of November, based on numerous indiscretions. He had started testing the names of potential replacements even before the censorship. The choice of François Bayrou ultimately gives the signal that he remains on the same line as before: for him, it is the capacity to ensure stability which is the key, by working with the parties of the “republican arc”, without suffer the censorship of others. In doing so, Emmanuel Macron reconnects with this tacit deal with Marine Le Pen which led to the fall of the Barnier government.
A “disinterested and pluralist” Bayrou government?
François Bayrou has a precise idea of the strategy that seems to him to be the right one in this period of political crisis with a National Assembly lacking a sufficient majority to govern alone. The centrist has been pleading for months for the formation of a “disinterested, pluralist and coherent government” made up of “personalities of character”, without specifying the political sides which could or could not take part in it, as Le Figaro recalls. A vision which is similar to that proposed by Emmanuel Macron.
François Bayrou's government should unsurprisingly include members of the MoDem and Macronists, but it could also open up to the right and the left on the condition that these forces agree to join the executive. Something difficult to imagine for the left: the PS and the Ecologists refused to participate in a government led by a Prime Minister foreign to the left. On the other hand, the appointment of right-wing ministers, or even the maintenance of certain resigned LR ministers such as Sébastien Lecornu or Bruno Retailleau, are mentioned. The LR party did not object to joining a Bayrou government, but refused to participate in an executive in which socialists would be appointed. During his handover speech with Michel Barnier last Friday on the steps of Matignon, the new Prime Minister did not give the slightest clue about the composition of his government. We will still have to wait. Maybe before Christmas? A schedule “difficult to keep”, according to a relative of the new tenant of Matignon, as indicated in the columns of Politico, Monday December 16, 2024.
