François Bayrou commands respect – but will he succeed?

President Macron has turned to another leader, one of France’s most experienced politicians, to get the country out of its government crisis.

But if François Bayrou commands a lot of respect across the political spectrum, it’s hard to see how he can avoid the same populist traps that felled his predecessor Michel Barnier.

Appointed by the president according to the constitution, the prime minister can act with the support of the parliament.

And since the National Assembly is hampered by the same conflict of the three blocs as it has been since July – with no change possible before July 2025 – it would be a rash striker to predict Bayrou any level of success.

Since Barnier’s fall last week – after a no-confidence vote backed by a majority of the left and the right – Macron has held talks with a range of leaders in the hope of forming a new loose coalition to govern the country.

Since Barnier was a man of the traditional right, Macron’s first instinct was to turn to the traditional left – and efforts were initially focused on rewarding the Socialist Party (PS) for its alliance with the leftist France Unbowed (LFI).

However, since the PS’s position was the adoption of renegade policies that Macron was unwilling to punish, he was forced to limit his search to his inner circle.

Bayrou has been a close friend of the president since before Macron won a stunning first election in 2017. Indeed, Bayrou’s decision to stand aside as a candidate that year – and to support the young man – created significant momentum behind Macron’s campaign.

A well-known figure on the political stage for more than 40 years, Bayrou – aged 73 – has run the Modem party, which now has 36 deputies, since it was founded in 2007. Before that he was the leader of other centrist incarnations.

His beginnings were in the Chistian Democrat tradition of post-war politics, which he generally supported but kept a distance from the large Gaullist part of the French right, led from the late 1970s by Jacques Chirac.

Bayrou, a former language teacher in his 20s, served as education minister from 1993 to 1997. But that was his last significant experience in government.

He was briefly Macron’s justice minister in 2017, but resigned after being accused of a party funding scandal.

He was eventually cleared of wrongdoing, but many of his colleagues were convicted. And prosecutors have appealed his acquittal, meaning he could still be brought back to court.

A devout Catholic with six children, Bayrou’s political base is in the Pyrenean city of Pau where he has been mayor since 2014. He speaks the local Bearnese language and strongly believes in separatism.

Bayrou has run three times for the presidency, as a quality player in this institution. He came very close to winning in 2007, when he came third with almost 19% of the vote. He then angered future winner Nicolas Sarkozy by openly supporting Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal.

When the only way to survive a minority government is to build bridges to the left and the right, Bayrou has the advantage of having a passing relationship with both sides.

His support for Royal and François Hollande in 2012 created some trust among the Socialists. But his views on debt – and the need to reduce it – have helped him to the right.

Interestingly, his relationship with Marine Le Pen of the populist right is also cordial. In the past, he has helped him gather the necessary funding to run for president, saying it would be an undermining of democracy if the leader of the most popular party could not stand up for himself.

Similar sentiments led to support for Le Pen, when the prosecutor in her party funding case (the same case as hers) recently demanded that she be declared unfit for public office.

This may mean that Bayrou can avoid automatic criticism from the populist right.

But Le Pen’s National Rally also warned that if the new prime minister has “another face” he will not hesitate to bring him down.

According to the veteran French political analyst Alain Duhamel, Bayrou is an independent and experienced person who – although allied with Macron – will not hesitate to use his power at the Hotel Matignon, which is his official base.

“He will not be easily reprimanded,” said Duhamel. “And he will tilt the policy to the left.”

The crisis in the French government – most critical in the Fifth Republic – has led to a major shift in power, away from the Elysée and towards the prime minister and parliament.

“The last time we had a situation like this was the Fourth Republic (after the war) when presidents had very little power,” said constitutional expert Christophe Boutin.

“Today again, the power in the parliamentary parties may or may not meet on certain shared goals.”

Bayrou’s first task will be to form a new government, which could take several days. The song will be an indication of whether he was able to build bridges with the Socialists on one side, and Barnier’s Conservatives on the other.

But very quickly he will have to create a new budget for 2025 to replace the one left by the Barnier government; and soon you will face potential rebels from the far left and far right.

The idea of ​​some members of parliament for some kind of non-aggression pact – where the government promises not to go public with the laws without a vote and MPs promise not to vote on a motion of censure – has been supported by Macron, who has also said he does not want to. dissolve the Council again before the end of his term in 2027.

But critics say such a deal would be a license for inertia, without a possible deal on key issues such as reducing the country’s mounting debt.