François Bayrou promises a new government “before Christmas”

François Bayrou promises a new government “before Christmas”
François Bayrou promises a new government “before Christmas”

François Bayrou promised Thursday to present his government “before Christmas” and called on the parties, excluding RN and LFI, to join it, trying to attract the left by saying he was ready to “resume without suspending” the flammable pension reform, but without convincing the New Popular Front.

• Also read: The new French prime minister consults and composes his government

• Also read: : Emmanuel Macron appoints centrist François Bayrou as prime minister

“An open door in good faith”: without masking his intention to rally a part of the left or to push it not to censor him, the new prime minister proposed on France 2 to think about “a different organization” of the regime of retirements by September.

He said he “believes” that there is an alternative to the legal age of 64, a major irritant of the latest reform adopted in 2023, but “does not believe” that the latter can ultimately be purely and simply repealed.

While he is trying to secure a majority despite an almost irreconcilable National Assembly, François Bayrou affirmed “that the path exists”. “If we don’t succeed in this test, then this is the last station before the cliff,” he added.

Appointed on Friday and cornered on all sides after a start strewn with pitfalls and controversies, the Prime Minister spoke a few hours after a summit meeting in Matignon, where he received party and parliamentary group leaders (excluding RN, UDR and LFI) and the presidents of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet and the Senate Gérard Larcher.

To the officials gathered around the table, he promised a government appointment “before Christmas”, even hoping for it “during the weekend”. And asked his interlocutors for a response on their participation in the government by Friday “at midday”, to clarify the positions of everyone and in particular of the Republicans, who have still not formalized their choice.

No 49.3 except “absolute blocking”

Attempting to reach out to the left, the tenant of Matignon promised not to use the weapon of 49.3, “unless there is an absolute blockage on the budget” for 2025, currently suspended. A budget that he “hopes” to achieve “by mid-February”, a very ambitious deadline given parliamentary imperatives.

But at the end of the meeting in Matignon, the oppositions did not seem convinced, far from it.

“We have not found any reason not to censor it.” “The Prime Minister, and those around him, really need to wake up,” declared PS first secretary Olivier Faure.

“I am still waiting for François Bayrou to take on the role of prime minister. But I wonder if he will succeed,” added the leader of the environmentalist senators, Guillaume Gontard, with the communists choosing for their part a position of “resolute opposition”…

Without committing to the participation of his own, the boss of LR deputies Laurent Wauquiez asked the other representatives for “a six-month stability commitment” for the future Bayrou government.

In a group meeting a little later, he affirmed that outgoing LR ministers, like Bruno Retailleau or Annie Genevard, considered that the conditions were “rather ripe to continue”. While asking for “a new exchange” with the Prime Minister to have “clarifications”, according to his entourage.

Another pledge to the LR from the Prime Minister, he publicly said he would like Bruno Retailleau to remain in post at the Interior, because he “showed in recent weeks and months that he had found decisions and directions that responded part of what public opinion demands.

But his first week in Matignon, marked by the barrage of criticism on his presence on Monday at the municipal council, remains very difficult to forget, when a cyclone had just ravaged Mayotte.

On this subject and while Emmanuel Macron was in Mayotte and did not wish to give a timetable for the reconstruction, François Bayrou launched an objective: to rebuild in a “short” time frame, “perhaps” in “two years “.

Motion of censure?

Will the Prime Minister pass the risk of censorship, when 65% of French people judge that his debut at Matignon is “unsatisfactory”, according to an Odoxa-Backbone Consulting survey for Le Figaro?

The rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is already promising it, “so as not to waste our time on dead-end debates”, and calls on other left-wing parties to “come home”.

The filing of a rebellious motion of censure seems certain from January 14, after François Bayrou’s general policy declaration.

François Bayrou said during the meeting that he did not intend to “dismiss” the RN or LFI “from national life”. “I will find ways to involve them in the work we have to do,” said the Prime Minister, according to comments reported by his team.

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