Job facing France's new PM Francois Bayrou is imposing at best - and few expect him to last long after Barnier's downfall
Francois Bayrou is a former minister and has tried three times to be president. He takes over a challenging role as French prime minister, with few expecting him to be in the stint for long.
Friday 13 December 2024 11:46, UK
Francois Bayrou, a former minister who has run three times for president and started his own political party, has been named as the new French prime minister.
He will start immediately, with the job of bringing some calm to the nation's volatile parliament.
The new prime minister has a job that is, at best, imposing and, at worst, impossible.
He will have to work with President Emmanuel Macron, while also finding common ground in a parliament that is split between politicians from the far left and far right, some of whom loathe the president and will do whatever it takes to undermine him.
Bayrou will also have to persuade a fractious, angry parliament to support a budget at a time when the nation's public finances are under scrutiny.
His predecessor lasted just three months in the job - few expect Bayrou to be in for a long stint.
Although from different parties, Bayrou is a long-standing ally of President Macron.
He was the justice minister in the first government after Macron's election, but then had to resign after being accused of fraud. He was acquitted of those charges earlier this year.
Bayrou, who is 73 years old, leads the Democratic Movement, which he founded in 2007.
He has made three unsuccessful runs at the presidency - in 2002, 2007 and 2012, before later supporting the Macron's presidential campaigns.
His rise to the job of prime minister comes as part of the fallout from the summer, when Macron called fresh national elections.
The result was a National Assembly essentially split between left, right and centre parties, creating gridlock between politicians who could find few areas of consensus.
It took two months for Macron to find a candidate for prime minister, Michel Barnier, who seemed palatable to all sides.
Instead, Barnier's tenure was a clear warning of how tough the job is, and what Bayrou will have to manage.
Barnier is an adept politician who spent years avoiding traps while leading the EU's negotiations over Brexit. A right-winger with a history of doing deals, Macron hoped he would be a calming influence.
Instead, Barnier was ousted from office within three months, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in France's modern history.
His downfall came amid huge political disputes over the country's budget. France is forecast to have a growing deficit of more than 6% - meaning that it is spending a lot more than it earns in tax revenue.
Barnier wanted to increase some taxes while cutting spending, a combination that proved unpalatable to opponents from both left and right.
He worked particularly hard on trying to do a deal with Marine Le Pen, leader of the right-wing Rassemblement National (National Rally), but in the end that failed.
She, along with Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Insoumise, both backed a vote of no confidence, and so Barnier's government collapsed.
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In a year of remarkable turbulence in French parliamentary politics, Bayrou is the fourth prime minister since January, when Elisabeth Borne was replaced by Gabriel Attal.
He served until September, before giving way to Barnier.