French Premier Bayrou Survives No-Confidence Vote
(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Francois Bayrou survived his first no-confidence motion in France’s highly fractious parliament on Thursday as the far-right and Socialists abstained in the vote.
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In a National Assembly with 577 lawmakers, just 131 supported the far-left’s proposal to oust the new premier.
There was little doubt over the outcome after Marine Le Pen’s lawmakers — who form the single largest party in the lower house — already said they would not attempt to evict Bayrou only a month into his tenure and before knowing his concrete proposals.
Still, the indirect support of the Socialist Party marked a shift in their position and a victory for the premier after those lawmakers played a pivotal role in the downfall of his predecessor, Michel Barnier. If their partial backing endures, Bayrou stands a far greater chance of passing the budget and surviving other censure motions in the coming weeks and months, whatever the far right decides.
Restoring some stability to government is imperative to salvage France from a crisis over its public finances. When Barnier was voted out of office in December it left the country with no full budget, a gaping deficit and only bare-bones legislation to avoid a shutdown.
The instability fueled sell-offs in French assets that have pushed up the sovereign borrowing costs relative to peers and made the budget equation even harder to resolve. There are also growing economic costs as consumer and business confidence slumps.
Bayrou, a veteran centrist who has worked with both the left and the right, was well placed to seek compromise in a National Assembly where no group has a majority after President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections last summer.
Unlike Barnier, who tried and failed to court the clemency of Le Pen’s National rally, Bayrou has instead focused on appeasing the 66 lawmakers in the Socialist group with a series of concessions.
Still, the Socialists who abstained in Thursday’s no-confidence vote have not written Bayrou a blank check. The future of their tacit support will depend in part on changes he makes to the 2025 budget plan and, crucially, to what extent he allows an unwinding of Macron’s contested 2023 pension law that raised the retirement age.
The next no-confidence vote will likely come when Bayrou attempts to push finance bills through parliament, as soon as the end of January.
“We are in opposition and will remain so, but we don’t believe in sustaining confusion whose only effect is to make the far-right the only alternative,” Socialist Party chief Olivier Faure said. “By not censuring your government as it takes its first steps, we are not saying we do have confidence in you.”
Other parties in the leftist New Popular Front alliance stuck to their outright opposition to the government, including the Greens and the Communists.
“The Socialist Party has fractured the New Popular Front, but they are capitulating alone,” France Unbowed’s founder, Jean-Luc Melenchon, said on X. “We will continue the fight.”
To preserve some kind of deal with the left, Bayrou has convened emergency talks between labor unions and business groups to negotiate changes to Macron’s pension reform, before the increase in the minimum retirement age to 64 from 62 is fully implemented.
While Socialists initially welcomed the move, they also objected to Bayrou’s condition that Macron’s reform will still apply if the negotiations fail. The premier has sought to allay some of their concerns by pledging that parliament would still have a say if there isn’t full agreement in the union talks.
“We will give negotiations every chance, but nobody should be fooled: If we have the impression the debate is locked and doesn’t fully explore alternatives, we will propose a censure motion,” Faure said.
If Bayrou can keep the implicit backing from the Socialists, it also strips power from Le Pen, whose lawmakers would hold the deciding votes if the entire left reunites to censure the government in the future.
“To escape their shameful alliance with the far-left, the Socialists have accepted to believe in your lies on revising Macron’s flagship reform,” National Rally vice-president Sebastien Chenu said, addressing Bayrou at the National Assembly. “The Socialists are helping you win some time.”
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