The new French Prime Minister François Bayrou consults political forces on Monday and Tuesday to compose his government and find a way to pass a budget for 2025, despite political instability the likes of which France has not experienced in decades.
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The centrist, ally of Emmanuel Macron, succeeded Michel Barnier on Friday, overthrown after three months by a historic vote of censure by left and far-right deputies.
François Bayrou thus became the sixth head of government since the first election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and the fourth in 2024.
First group leader received in Matignon Monday morning, the boss of the National Rally deputies, Marine Le Pen indicated upon her exit that she had “expressed to the Prime Minister the reservations” of her party “on a certain number of personalities” likely to enter the government.
“The method is more positive than I have seen so far,” she said. She was accompanied by the party’s No. 1 Jordan Bardella.
Mr. Bayrou, who insisted on personally calling each group leader, then received the socialist leaders, who do not intend to enter the government.
The latter indicated that they remained “hungry”. “It was not conclusive,” declared the First Secretary of the PS, Olivier Faure, at the end of the meeting, even if “we talked a lot about the non-censorship pact” proposed by the left.
The leader of the Republican Right (DR) deputies Laurent Wauquiez must come alone. His party Les Républicains conditions the participation of the right in government on the “project”.
La France insoumise (radical left), which has already promised censorship, refused to meet François Bayrou in this context, fearing that “it will all be a comedy again”, according to its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“Personalities”
Mr. Bayrou indicated that he wanted a tight team with experienced “personalities”. He will go Monday evening to Pau, the town in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques in the southwest of which he has been mayor for 10 years to chair the municipal council, with the idea of retaining this mandate.
“I will be a prime minister in full exercise and complementarity” with the president, he declared in the weekly La Tribune Dimanche, showing his intention not to fight over sovereign positions, such as Defense or Foreign Affairs. .
François Bayrou’s party currently holds the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with Jean-Noël Barrot.
It remains to be seen whether the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, a loyalist of Emmanuel Macron whom the head of state was about to appoint as prime minister, wishes to return to his post.
Friday, Mr. Bayrou received the outgoing Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau (LR, right). He left him to manage the crisis in the French territory of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, affected by a deadly cyclone, as a guarantee of the continuation of his mission in government, even if the possible retention of this divisive minister split.
Time is running out for the formation of the government because it will be the one that will carry the new finance bill for 2025, interrupted by censorship, while the deficit is worsening and the rating agencies are frowning.
French deputies must adopt a special bill, intended to guarantee the continuity of the State, by allowing taxes to be raised, spending credits on the basis of the previous budget, and authorizing the State and Social Security to borrow.
In this regard, the new Prime Minister received on Sunday the outgoing Minister of the Budget, Laurent Saint-Martin. He also met on Saturday with the governor of the Bank of France, François Villeroy de Galhau, and the president of the Court of Auditors Pierre Moscovici. So many possible profiles in the Economy and Finance, such as that of Roland Lescure, former Minister of Industry, whose name had been circulated for the position of head of government.
