French President Emmanuel Macron has named centrist ally Francois Bayrou as prime minister after several days of tense political gridlock.
The 73-year-old from the centre-right Democratic Movement, or MoDem, party will replace Michel Barnier, who resigned last week after losing a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament. Of the 577 legislators, 331 from both the left and the right voted to remove him.
The fall of Barnier’s government, which took office after snap elections in June and July, has not only thrown France into political chaos but has also led to calls by opposition party leaders for Macron’s resignation as well. Many politicians and people in France have been unhappy with the president’s policies for years.
While Macron has said he will continue as president until his mandate ends in 2027, will his new pick, Bayrou, and his government last?
Here is what we know:
Who is Francois Bayrou?
Bayrou is popularly known as the “third man” of French politics, a name he gained during the 2007 presidential election, during which he presented himself as a “third way” between the right and the left.
Bayrou has several strings in his bow. He is currently the high commissioner of planning, the French government body responsible for leading and coordinating projects linked to social, environmental and technological issues. He is also the mayor of Pau, a town in southwestern France, and he is the president of the European Democratic Party and its French member party, MoDem.
Born into a family of wealthy farmers in the picturesque French town of Borderes near the the Pyrenees mountain range, he has taken an interest in politics since his youth. He worked as a Latin and Greek teacher in the town of Bearn before he began his political career in the 1980s.
In 1986, he was elected to the National Assembly. He became a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2002. Bayrou also served as education minister from 1993 in the governments of Republican Prime Ministers Edouard Balladur and Alain Juppe.
In 2006, the now-defunct centre-right Union for French Democracy, which was merged into MoDem at the end of 2007, nominated him as its 2007 presidential candidate to run against right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy and left-wing Segolene Royal. Bayrou came third in the first round of votes, failing to qualify for the presidential run-off, which was ultimately won by Sarkozy.
Bayrou ran again unsuccessfully in 2012 and was expected to run in the 2017 presidential election. However, that year he stood down and instead offered his support to Macron, a move that surprised many.
At the time, Bayrou said at a news conference: “French people feel politicians’ words count for nothing. … We have to convince the French our actions can match our words. It’s a good time to do it even if it is a sacrifice.” He added that Macron was “brilliant” and would play an important role in cleaning up French politics.
That same year, Bayrou became minister of justice in Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s cabinet. But his tenure was marred by scandal when he and the MoDem party were prosecuted on charges of misusing European Parliament funds, a claim he denied in court.
Bayrou resigned as justice minister after a month in office because of the allegations but was acquitted of fraud charges in February this year.
In a post on X after the announcement of Bayrou’s appointment on Friday, Macron ally and former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal welcomed the news and said his Renaissance party members would support it.
“He has the qualities to defend the general interest and build the essential stability that the French expect,” Attal added.
What do opposition leaders think of the appointment?
Macron held meetings with both left- and right-wing leaders this week before selecting Bayrou.
However, not all have welcomed his choice, and some are calling for another no confidence vote.
Left wing
Parliamentarians from the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, which won the most votes in the second round of the snap elections in July, have long been opposed to Macron’s centrist policies and called on Macron to consider the election results and pick a prime minister from their coalition. They remain aggrieved that he has not done this.
Mathilde Panot from the hard-left France Unbowed said on X that her party will launch a no confidence vote.
“The MPs will have two choices: support for Macron’s bailout or censure. We made ours,” she said.
Une candidature de plus au sursis d’Emmanuel Macron.
Deux choix clairs s’offrent au pays : la continuité des politiques de malheur avec François Bayrou ou la rupture.
Deux choix s’offriront aux députés : le soutien au sauvetage de Macron ou la censure.
Nous avons fait le…
— Mathilde Panot (@MathildePanot) December 13, 2024
Marine Tondelier, leader of France’s centre-left Ecologists party, shared a similar view and called Bayrou’s appointment “bad street theatre”.
Fabien Roussel, the secretary-general of the French Communist Party, also said on X that Bayrou’s appointment was “bad news”.
Right wing
The leader of the National Rally (RN) party, Marine Le Pen, warned that Bayrou’s “extension of Macronism” will result in “failure”.
“A continuation of Macronism, twice rejected at the ballot box, could only lead to deadlock and failure,” she posted on X.
Jordan Bardella, RN president, told local media: “This new prime minister must understand that he has no majority in parliament. … Our red lines remain.”
Can this new French government last?
Experts are divided on what the future holds for Bayrou’s government. According to Amine Snoussi, a political adviser at the French Parliament to left-wing party La France Insoumise, any figure from the centre right or right is doomed to fail.
“The united left is the strongest coalition in the parliament. Centrists do not have a majority. They have to lean on the left or on the far right,” he told Al Jazeera.
“By refusing to give power to the coalition that won the last elections, Macron is risking a hidden alliance between centrists and the far right,” he said. He added that this is what happened to the last government with the resignation of Barnier being the outcome.
Jonathan Machler, a civil society activist and member of the French Communist Party, said Bayrou represents pure “Macronism” and his appointment will make France plunge into a deeper political crisis.
“The only alternative for the government to last is to finally listen to the aspirations of the French people and shift its policies to the left, notably on the repeal of pension reform, the question of wages, aid for farmers and an end to the weakening of public services,” he said.
However, Jacob Ross, an expert on French politics and Franco-German relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera that Bayrou has a reputation for being “a fairly independent and free-thinking politician” who has made the “third way” his trademark.
Ross said he believes this could be to Bayrou’s benefit.
“Throughout his long career, he at times supported candidates from the left, at times from the right, which might make him a good candidate to build a broad coalition capable of governing the country until September and the potential next snap elections in the National Assembly,” Ross said.
“Bayrou has also been an advocate of grand coalitions and a culture of compromise in the past. … He is also in favour of reforming electoral law and introducing proportionality for the legislative elections, which could be part of his agenda and one reason why he is nominated by Macron,” he added.
What will be the main challenges for Bayrou?
Budget and economy
One of Bayrou’s first responsibilities as prime minister will be getting a 2025 budget through parliament, a task that proved to be too much for his predecessor.
Parliamentarians from the New Popular Front tabled the recent vote of no confidence in response to Barnier’s austerity budget. The motion was then supported by the RN, which stepped in after Barnier tried to push the budget through parliament without a vote.
The RN had wanted Barnier’s budget to include a rise in state pensions and a provision to scrap medical reimbursement cuts. The left has been opposed to Macron since his pension reforms, which raised the national retirement age.
Acknowledging the challenges he faces, Bayrou told reporters on Friday: “Everybody knows the road will be long.”
France currently has a public deficit equivalent to 6.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), which Bayrou will have to address. European Union rules require member countries to have a budget deficit of no more than 3 percent of GDP.
According to Ross, a preliminary budget built on the current one from Barnier, will likely pass without too many problems.
“But the discussions on the 2025 budget have been building up for months now. Every political party has their own interests to defend. The Ministry of Defence and the armed forces are especially worried since they would have benefitted from the largest increase in budget in the next year” and following years, he said.
Lack of consensus
According to Gesine Weber, a research fellow at the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the French political system has significantly changed since the most recent elections with parties now having to strike agreements in parliament because no political bloc has a majority.
“This is something relatively new in the French political system as the parliament in France today is much more diverse than it used to be when it had only two big blocs [left and right],” she told Al Jazeera.
In light of these changes, she said, key challenges for the new government will be unity and stability as well as how to achieve stable majorities in parliament within which leaders will not jump to vote for no confidence motions as soon as the opportunity arises.
“However, I do not expect the next government to be stable,” she said.
2024-12-13 15:27:46
