French President Emmanuel Macron Friday chose Francois Bayrou as the new Prime Minister. Bayrou is a centrist leader of the MoDem Party.It’s the fourth prime minister this year as French political turmoil continues. File photo By William Alix/UPI | License Photo
French President Emmanuel Macron Friday chose Francois Bayrou to be the new Prime Minister.
Bayrou — a centrist leader of the MoDem Party — will be France’s fourth prime minister this year as Macron attempts to create a political consensus and bring an end to the political instability. Advertisement
When Macron called a snap election this summer it created political gridlock as Marine LePen’s right-wing party gained clout in the French Parliament.
Michel Barnier was ousted as prime minister Dec. 5 by the National Assembly after just three months in office.
Ahead of naming Bayrou as the next prime minister Macron held meetings with France’s main political parties, but not with Le Pen’s National Rally party or the far-left France Unbowed.
It was the far-left and far-right parties that collapsed the Barnier government. The French legislature is composed of three roughly equal factions of left-wing, center-right and far-right.
French media reported that a nearly two-hour meeting between Macron and Bayrou at the Élysée Friday morning was “tense.”
The France Unbowed Party wasted no time in threatening to stage another no-confidence vote against Macron’s new prime minister, while National Rally President Jordan Bardella urged Bayrou to engage with opposition parties while proclaiming that the prime minister has “no democratic legitimacy or majority.” Advertisement
It was Barnier’s budget that mixed tax increases with spending cuts as he sought to reduce a budget deficit that united the right and the left against him in the National Assembly.
Bardella said that the budget red line hasn’t changed.
French center-left parties — the Socialists, Greens and Communists — have participated in talks to form a new government.
In choosing the centrist Bayrou as the new prime minister, Macron is trying to cobble together a governing coalition without the far-left and far-right parties.
The question is whether Macron’s version of the political center will hold this time or if Bayrou will suffer the same fate as Barnier.
