The new French Prime Minister, the centrist François Bayrou, spoke of “a Himalaya” of difficulties, particularly budgetary ones, to be resolved by taking office on Friday at the head of a country plunged into a serious political crisis.
“No one knows the difficulty of the situation more than me. I took reckless risks in my political life to raise the question of debt and deficits,” declared this 73-year-old veteran of the political scene, during the transfer of power with his predecessor Michel Barnier. “I know nothing about the Himalayas that stand before us, the difficulties of all kinds,” said this long-time ally of President Emmanuel Macron, who will have to provide France with a budget next year, in a National Assembly without a majority.
The deficit of the second largest economy in the euro zone, which reaches 6.1% of GDP, and its debt, whose interest amounts to 60 billion euros per year, pose “a moral problem, not just a financial problem”, insisted the new head of government. François Bayrou also warned against “the glass wall that has been built between citizens and the authorities”, while the country has plunged into political crisis since Emmanuel Macron’s surprise dissolution of the National Assembly. , in June.
“There is a path to find that brings people together instead of dividing them. I think reconciliation is necessary,” declared François Bayrou just after his appointment, Friday at midday. Bayrou’s appointment came nine days after the fall of Michel Barnier’s government, overthrown on December 4, after only three months in office, by a historic censure voted by deputies from the left and the far right.
At the head of a “tightened” “government of general interest”, desired by President Macron, he will be faced with an immense task, with a 2025 budget still not voted on as a priority.
If there will be no “a priori” censorship coming from the RN, according to its president Jordan Bardella, LFI has conversely affirmed that it will vote for the censorship of François Bayrou, because he is not from from the left. The Republicans (LR, right) have conditioned their participation in government on its roadmap.
On the left, as a price for their non-censorship, the socialists are asking Bayrou to commit to renouncing recourse to 49.3 – an article of the Constitution which allows a text to be adopted without a vote – and to proceed with a “reorientation of government policy. The communists expressed a similar position. Environmentalists have already threatened to censor the new Prime Minister if he pursues the same policy and keeps Bruno Retailleau as Minister of the Interior.
François Bayrou wants to find, according to his formula, the contours of a “democratic cooperation agreement”: the government would undertake not to use 49.3 to impose its laws, and the opponents for their part would not censor it.
