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PARIS (CN) — A week after the collapse of France’s government, President Emmanuel Macron named François Bayrou, a centrist ally,**** as the country’s next prime minister.
Bayrou, 73, has been a crucial partner in Macron’s centrist alliance. He’s a well-known figure in French politics with the Democratic Movement, known as MoDem, which he founded in 2007. Macron hopes his decades of political experience will help restore stability.
In France, 2024 has been the most tumultuous political year in recent memory. The country has been in a state of political limbo since Macron dissolved the government in June and called for snap elections.
On Tuesday, he imposed a deadline of 48 hours to make the announcement as he met with representatives from various parties. Notably missing were the far-right and -left.
On Dec. 4, the extreme right National Rally — spearheaded by Marine Le Pen and her protégé, Jordan Bardella — joined the leftwing New Popular Front coalition in a parliamentary motion of censure against Michel Barnier, then the prime minister. With a majority voting no confidence, the government collapsed, leading to Barnier’s resignation after just three months in the role.
Officially, the groups united against the proposed 2025 budget; the right’s red line was tax increases, while the left opposed defunding public services.
Olivier Costa, a director at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po, said Le Pen’s unofficial motives were transparent.
“I think that quite obviously, it’s a way for Marine Le Pen to divert attention away from these legal problems,” he told Courthouse News.
Costa was referring to Le Pen’s ongoing trial on charges of embezzlement. Prosecutors said if she is convicted, they will seek to bar her from political office for five years, foiling her 2027 presidential ambitions.
The left, which wanted Macron to appoint a prime minister from their ranks, had been trying to bring down Barnier since his appointment in September.
“We had the impression that censorship was planned, meaning that in the end, the financing of social security was in fact a pretext,” Luc Rouban, a senior research fellow at Sciences Po Paris, told Courthouse News.
The budget will be the new prime minister’s biggest priority moving into the new year. The Parliament will consider a stopgap measure Monday cobbled together by the outgoing cabinet at their last meeting Wednesday. The next government will have to make something work until the summer, when Macron can call for new legislative elections.
The president has said he will remain in office, despite numerous calls for him to resign, leaving the administration with little room for maneuvering that doesn’t involve compromise.
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