Macron names Francois Bayrou as new French PM. Who is he?
Global News
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou gave a sober assessment of whether he could tame a hung parliament that ousted his predecessor, Michel Barnier, just last week.
French President Emmanuel Macron named key ally Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of 2024 on Friday, but the scale of the challenge facing the veteran centrist was immediately clear as the Socialist Party refused to join his coalition government.
Bayrou, 73, gave a sober assessment of whether he could tame a hung parliament that ousted his predecessor, Michel Barnier, just last week.
“It is a long road, everyone knows that,” he told reporters. “I am not the first to take a long road.”
France’s festering political malaise has raised doubts about whether Macron will complete his second presidential term until 2027.
It has also lifted French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump heads to the White House and Germany braces for new elections following the collapse of its governing coalition.
Bayrou, the founder of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party which has been a part of Macron’s ruling alliance since 2017, has himself run for president three times, leaning on his rural roots as the longtime mayor of the southwestern town of Pau.
His immediate priority will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget, with a nastier battle over the belt-tightening 2025 legislation looming early next year.
Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to Barnier’s downfall and left-wing leaders on Friday announced they might try to topple Bayrou as well should he use special constitutional powers to ram through the budget against parliament.
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