After ten days of waiting, the President of the Republic chose to appoint someone close to Matignon: François Bayrou. A consecration for the president of MoDem, three times a candidate in the presidential election and who withdrew his candidacy in favor of that of Emmanuel Macron in 2017.
Mayor of Pau and High Commissioner for Planning, he must now work to form a government and rally as many political forces as possible behind him, to avoid experiencing the same fate as Michel Barnier. A task as urgent as it is explosive, since its executive as soon as formed will immediately have to begin new discussions with Parliament to provide France with a budget in 2025.
“The first centrist Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic”
Is François Bayrou the man for the job, capable of finding a path to compromise in the face of a tripolarized Assembly? “He was the first to demand that men from the right, the left and the center work together. There is a certain consistency in seeing it happen today, if we want to govern while avoiding the motion of censure,” underlines the historian Jean Garrigues.
He is even “the first centrist Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic”, notes Pascal Perrineau. For the political scientist, this new appointment, after that of Michel Barnier at the end of the summer, indeed marks a “return to safe values”. “A few months ago, Emmanuel Macron turned to Les Républicains and a 73-year-old man. Today, he turns to a 73-year-old heir to Christian democracy. There is something which signals the failure of what the Macronians like to call the new policy,” he analyzes.
For political communicator Emilie Zapalski, with the installation of a centrist figure at its head, this new government could on the contrary run to its own downfall. “It’s as if we were purging this fantasy of “neither left nor right”, that we were going all the way. Emmanuel Macron has failed and is sending to Matignon one of the first initiators of overcoming this divide,” she observes. A situation which could ultimately lead to the rise of extremes, fears Emilie Zapalski: “I am afraid that we will end this period of “neither left nor right”, which has not achieved much, and that ‘then we hit the wall of much more radical personalities. »
“He has a political identity which is not at all that of Emmanuel Macron”
By appointing François Bayrou to Matignon, Emmanuel Macron is, however, not exactly choosing to maintain his political line. Very close to the head of state, the new Prime Minister is no less critical. “He does not seem willing to be a collaborating Prime Minister,” believes Jean Garrigues, “he has a historical political identity, that of social Christianity, which is not at all that of Emmanuel Macron. They converged, but always in criticism. »
François Bayrou has thus shown himself to be very cautious about many significant reforms of this second five-year term. Without firmly opposing the increase in the retirement age, he affirmed that “another reform was possible”. He also opposed the adoption of the immigration law, judging that “it was not the right time”. Last February, he even refused to join Gabriel Attal’s government.
“This is perhaps what explains the difficulties in negotiating this morning with Emmanuel Macron,” notes Jean Garrigues. According to information from Le Monde, François Bayrou would indeed seem not to be the president’s first choice. Received at the Élysée early in the morning, he was first offered to “be number 2 in a government led by Roland Lescure”, an early Macronist, much more aligned with the convictions of Emmanuel Macron . “Faced with François Bayrou’s refusal and his threats to leave the coalition, the head of state subsequently clearly changed his mind,” specifies Le Monde.
“The Socialist Party takes on the weight of arbiter that the National Rally had before”
While the president of MoDem has always been careful to maintain his ideological independence, on what basis will he now rely to govern? “François Bayrou’s project has always been to get people of different political identities to work together, without each losing their identity, by trying to make them converge. It may be utopian, but in any case it is not at all what happened with Emmanuel Macron, who sucked everyone in behind him,” analyzes Jean Garrigues.
For the moment, only La France insoumise has already affirmed that it will vote for censorship of the Bayrou government. While refusing to enter this government, the socialists are more cautious. In a letter addressed to the new Prime Minister, the PS asks him to renounce 49.3 and to guarantee that his government “will not place itself in any way under the dependence of the National Rally”, to avoid censorship. For his part, Jordan Bardella affirmed that “there will be no a priori censorship” of the next government. The Republicans, with whom François Bayrou maintains a rather conflictual relationship, have yet to decide on their position during a meeting scheduled for this afternoon.
To ensure maximum support, it is towards the left that the new Prime Minister must turn, believes Emilie Zapalski: “Emmanuel Macron has decided to put the National Rally offside in the negotiations, which means say that François Bayrou can only count on the left. This is why the Socialist Party takes on the weight of referee that the RN had before. » We will not have to wait long before seeing if these gestures towards the socialists are confirmed. As part of the examination of the 2025 budget in the National Assembly, MoDem deputies welcomed several tax justice measures, notably pushing for higher taxation of “superdividends”. Will these measures be taken up as part of a new finance bill? François Bayrou would then take the risk of attracting the wrath of elected Macronists and some of the Republicans. For the moment, the equation does not seem to be resolved.
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