The latest attempt to solve France’s political and financial crisis could be called “back to the future.”
The new prime minister, François Bayrou, was education minister when Emmanuel Macron was still a schoolboy. The 73-year-old centrist, who was reluctantly appointed by the president on Friday after days of closed-door wrangling following the collapse of Michel Barnier’s short-lived government, was a key ally and adviser to the younger Macron as he took over France’s political leadership. The system was made dynamic. Won the presidency in 2017 at the age of 39.
Macron believed he had consigned the old political class and left-right divide to history – saying “Earlier World” (Earlier World). Now both the lame ones are back to bite the President. Bairau effectively Hesitating Macron was forced to appoint himAccording to insiders, by threatening to oust the President’s MoDem partyensemble cast(Together) combine otherwise.
Macron’s chances of completing his term until 2027 and preventing hard-right anti-immigration leader Marine Le Pen from succeeding him at the Elysee Palace depend on the success of the move.
Bayrou was recalled in a second attempt to break the parliamentary deadlock that had defeated Barnier and left France without a budget and in the firing line of credit rating agencies because of its rising debt and long-term deficit. moody’s downgrade France’s sovereign rating on the day he took over the Hotel Matignon office from the former Brexit negotiator.
With financial pressures and public discontent rising, can Bayeru do any better than the hapless Barnier? The answer depends on his ability to convince both the center-left Socialist Party (PS) and the conservative Republicans (LR) to stop toppling his government, which would at least give him breathing room to show some results. Is.
Many commentators, particularly on the left, dismissed Bayrou’s nomination as “same old, same old”, an attempt by Macron to salvage his liberal legacy by nominating someone he trusts. He could not scrap his pension reform and raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. , or reverse your tax cuts for wealth creators.
But the political equations have changed since early December, when an unnatural, ad-hoc alliance of the leftist New Popular Front (NPF) led by Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left France Unbiased (LFI) . , Barnier’s government was brought down due to plans to defer inflation for pensioners.
The socialist leader, Oliver Faure, felt that many socialist supporters did not approve of the PS voting with “extreme” on the censure motion, and thinks that the party should break with the LFI and act as a responsible “governing left”. I should behave more creatively. Facing internal party challenges, he agreed to talks with Macron and said the PS was ready to reach a compromise based on “mutual concessions”. The Greens also said they are open to a non-aggression pact if the new prime minister respects certain conditions, notably refraining from using constitutional tools to force laws through parliament without a vote.
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Bayrou, a farmer’s son who has a more pronounced social conscience than Macron or Barnier, could use this opportunity to form a government of old hands from the centre-left to the centre-right, even if that means Barnier’s There has to be some reduction in expenses. In his first statement upon taking office, the new Prime Minister, who has his roots in the rural south-west, condemned the “glass ceiling” that separated France’s elite from the common people, and called for a Promised to restore democracy, which took hard work. Work is rewarded.
Political sources say he is likely to retain his conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, who has built a “tough on crime, tough on illegal migration” profile in three months in office. But there is speculation that Bayeru will try to bring in political veterans from the previous administration to replace some of the second-rate politicians in Barnier’s fallen government.
To appease the Socialists and the Greens – but also Le Pen’s RN – he may promise a bill to introduce proportional representation in legislative elections before the elections for the next National Assembly. This would align France with most other continental democracies, where government by coalition is the norm. This would free the PS and the Greens from having to rely on LFI votes to win constituency run-offs under the current two-round system. But it would also mean a weaker, more unstable executive than the highly vertical system that has been in place since the establishment of the Fifth Republic by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.
Fundamentally, the French are grappling with the same equation of political instability and fiscal pressure as many other aging European societies with low economic growth, where politicians cannot agree on spending cuts that harm their voters. Except that even before Macron caused a political crisis by dissolving parliament in June, France had the highest taxes and public spending as a proportion of national income of any EU country.
Unless Bayeru can forge a minimum consensus of parties from center-right to center-left on socially balanced solutions to curb the budget deficit and introduce one or two popular reforms, the latest episode in France’s political drama will only take Will boost Penn’s prospects. Power to win. Bayru himself noted on Friday that he faces a “Himalayan” task. For once it might not have been propaganda.