Francois Bayrou in Parliament.
AFP
The task is becoming more complicated for French Prime Minister François Bayrou, who continues his consultations on Thursday to form a government, but must face the demands of the left and the far right, and the threat of the right-wing LR party not to enter it.
François Bayrou proposed on Wednesday to bring together on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. in Matignon the presidents of political parties and groups, excluding the National Rally (extreme right) and La France Insoumise (radical left), to “enlighten and hear (them) about the orientations” which the future government must follow.
“Illuminate” and “hear”
“Before proposing to the President of the Republic a government composition, I want to meet with you to enlighten you and hear from you on the directions that we must follow,” wrote the Prime Minister in a letter addressed to the parties, at the end of several consultations with each of the political forces.
The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet and her counterpart in the Senate, Gérard Larcher, were also invited to this meeting.
President Emmanuel Macron was to receive Mr. Bayrou again on Wednesday before leaving Paris until Sunday to travel to Brussels, Mayotte, Djibouti and Ethiopia, his entourage said.
“It’s progressing,” said someone close to Mr. Macron after Tuesday’s meetings.
While François Bayrou tries to present a tight team of around 25 ministers with figures from the left, center and right, according to parliamentary sources, the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party has issued conditions.
The resigning Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau estimated on Wednesday that the conditions “are not met” for him to remain in government.
Speaking on behalf of his party, he explained that LR “will try to see in the coming days if a certain number of obstacles are removed”. “It would be a shame if the government moved to the left while France is on the right,” warned Mr. Retailleau, who met Mr. Bayrou in the morning.
The shooting also came from the far right, with several refusals on names expressed, including that of former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, because they “do not embody the rupture” desired by the French, said the MP from National Rally (RN) Laure Lavalette.
Threats of censorship
Beyond that, it was increasingly clearly stated threats of censorship that raised the stakes.
“If François Bayrou does not take into account the errors that Michel Barnier may have made, both in form and in substance, he will also head towards the same consequences, that is to say sooner or later towards censorship », Warned the vice-president of the RN Sébastien Chenu.
François Bayrou, “hour after hour, is writing the story of his own censorship”, said Wednesday the boss of the Ecologists, Marine Tondelier, for whom “failed entries cannot be made up for”.
“If he comes to offer us the same budget as Mr Barnier proposed, that is to say we just change the people, but we have (…) the same budgets, the same difficulties for the French, we are censoring this budget,” insisted the communist Fabien Roussel, whose group plans to vote for censorship as soon as the general policy declaration is made on January 14.
(afp)
