Bayrou received by Emmanuel Macron at the end of the day

President Emmanuel Macron and his Prime Minister François Bayrou were to meet on Sunday evening at the Élysée, a further sign of the imminence of a new government, just two days before the Christmas holidays. Emmanuel Macron and François Bayrou have already spoken twice on Sunday, and the Prime Minister is in the process of making “final adjustments” for the composition of the government, we learned from those close to the latter.

This same source added that the exchanges between the two heads of the executive “went well” but did not specify when the government would be announced. François Bayrou reaffirmed Thursday that he wanted to present his government “during the weekend”, “at least before Christmas”. Emmanuel Macron returned to France on Sunday morning, after a trip to Djibouti and Ethiopia.

On Monday, there is little chance that a government will be announced, due to the day of national mourning decreed by the head of state for the Mahorais whose island was devastated by cyclone Chido. There would still be Tuesday, December 24, just before France plunges into the end-of-year celebrations.

Government or not, François Bayrou begins his mission with a historically low rating, with 66% of people dissatisfied according to the Ifop-Journal du Dimanche barometer.

After meeting the parties and parliamentary groups one by one, then all together, the Prime Minister faces several obstacles to distance himself from the choices made by his predecessor, Michel Barnier. The Republicans were slow to give their approval to agree to participate in the government, even though François Bayrou announced his intention to maintain the very right-wing Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau.

But Saturday evening, after having exchanged with François Bayrou, the leader of the LR deputies Laurent Wauquiez confirmed to his troops that he was moving towards the party's participation in the government, subject to written commitments from the Prime Minister “with details on the road map”.

Referring to his “personal case”, according to participants in this meeting, Laurent Wauquiez declared: “The only possible configuration for me was Bercy (the Ministry of Finance) with a clear roadmap, in particular no increase in taxes. There is no such roadmap. He (François Bayrou) offered me something else, I declined.”

“Joining the government today is anything but comfortable,” said the other strong man of LR, Bruno Retailleau, in the “JDD”. But “if the right does not take its responsibilities, despite the assurances received on its red lines, then François Bayrou will have no other choice but to turn to the left,” he said. It is precisely the left flank which remains the most difficult to convince for the champion of “co-responsibility”.

Thursday, the leader of the socialist party Olivier Faure left Matignon disappointed, saying he was “dismayed by the poverty of what was proposed” and not ruling out censoring the brand new prime minister, an early ally of Emmanuel Macron.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose movement refuses any agreement with François Bayrou, followed suit, judging that the fourth prime minister of the year “will not survive the winter” without having been censored by the National Assembly. Like Michel Barnier on December 4 on the draft social security budget.

However, former socialist minister François Rebsamen, 73, announced in “La Tribune Dimanche” that he was “ready” to join the government, praising his long-standing “relationship of trust” with François Bayrou. But the latter must make “significant concessions” to the left, warned Public Square MEP Raphaël Glucksmann on Saturday, referring in particular to pensions.

The mayor of Pau accepted the principle of opening a discussion to review the reform raising the retirement age to 64, but without suspending the current reform. Without “really negotiating” with the left, the Prime Minister would demand a “surrender” from the latter rather than creating the conditions for a “compromise”, warned Raphaël Glucksmann.