The Prime Minister’s debut is, however, disrupted by the devastating passage of tropical cyclone Chido on Saturday in Mayotte where there are already at least 14 deaths, but where the total number of victims could reach “several hundred” according to the prefect of the ‘island. The Prime Minister participated on Saturday evening in an interministerial crisis meeting which he convened with the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, on the situation in the archipelago. “State services are present and organized” in the face of a cyclone “of unexpected violence,” declared Mr. Bayrou after this meeting. “It is a situation which is dramatic, which is absolutely exceptional”, with a human toll which could be “heavy”, but “the State is standing”, assured Mr. Retailleau at his side.
Nathalie Saint-Cricq: “This Friday, after his interview with François Bayrou, Emmanuel Macron was afraid”
Downgrade of France’s sovereign rating
Mr. Bayrou received on Saturday the first president of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici, the prefect of Ile-de-France Marc Guillaume, the president of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, and his Senate counterpart Gérard Larcher, at day after his appointment to Matignon, following Michel Barnier (LR), victim of a motion of censure three months after his arrival. The governor of the Bank of France, François Villeroy de Galhau, also spoke with the head of government, after the downgrading of France’s sovereign rating from “Aa2” to “Aa3” during the night from Friday to Saturday by the Moody’s rating agency, which fears that the country’s “political fragmentation” is not conducive to the rapid recovery of public finances. During the traditional handover on Friday, François Bayrou immediately raised the subject of the deficit and debt, “a question which poses a moral problem”.
His first challenge will be to provide France with a budget for next year, with a National Assembly still without a majority. Assuring that he ignores nothing “of the Himalayas that stand before us, of difficulties of all kinds”, he promised to “hide nothing, neglect nothing and leave nothing aside”. The Prime Minister, aged 73, must now tackle the composition of his government, which he wants to be compact and dominated by experienced figures.
“An arm of honor”, “The man for the job”: the appointment of François Bayrou provokes reactions, one party is already announcing its color
The risk of censorship
He must put up with an Assembly which can bring him down if the voices of the left unite with those of the National Rally, as during the motion which ended Michel Barnier’s lease. The president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, also warned him about X: the head of government will be “under the surveillance” of Parliament and “of the first group of deputies in the National Assembly”, that of his party. He demanded that the RN, excluded from a meeting with the Head of State on Tuesday, be “quickly” received by the Prime Minister, and recalled its “red lines”, whether on “purchasing power” , security or even proportional.
