Few expect new PM to last long after Barnier’s tough tenure
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 the job immediately, with the job of bringing some calm to the nation’s volatile parliament. He faces 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 between 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.
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 that was 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.
Read the full piece by Adam Parsons on France’s new prime minister.
Source : Sky News
