France’s New Premier Aims to Name a Government This Weekend
(Bloomberg) -- French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is aiming to present a new cabinet over the weekend and deliver a budget by mid-February, warning that failure to navigate the current political disarray could be catastrophic for the country.
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Bayrou, speaking in an interview on France 2 television, said the timing of the cabinet announcement could slip, but would definitely come before Christmas.
He’s been holding consultations with party leaders to form a new administration after the previous government fell in a no-confidence vote earlier this month. Bayrou, who was appointed premier last week, is under pressure to move quickly and pass a spending bill aimed at putting the country’s finances back in order.
“Everyone is speculating on chaos,” Bayrou said in the interview. “But I believe the path exists — maybe it’s mad optimism — but I can tell you with certainty that if we don’t succeed in this attempt it’s the last stop before the cliff edge.”
President Emmanuel Macron’s decision over the summer to have a snap election left France with a hung parliament, reducing the power of his centrist lawmakers and leaving no group with a majority. The National Assembly is now made up of three roughly equal-sized blocs: a left-wing coalition, a weakened center and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and her allies.
In an effort to soften opposition, the new French premier opened the door to unwinding Macron’s signature pension reform that raised the minimum retirement age to 64 and sparked mass protests last year. Possible changes will be debated in a months-long conference between labor unions, political parties and business groups that would reexamine the reform.
“I accept that we open every topic,” Bayrou said, including different solutions to balance the pension system without the 64-year age minimum. But he ruled out suspending the application of Macron’s reform.
The possibility of unwinding elements of the law wouldn’t sit well with the president and his lawmakers, who expended an enormous amount of political capital to pass the 2023 bill.
Left-wing leaders criticized Bayrou earlier in the day, saying he’s failed to address their key demands and expressed skepticism that he would remain in office until September.
“We’ve said that we’re available for an agreement to avoid a no-confidence motion, but we’d still have to find someone who’s prepared to give us good reasons not” to oust them from office, Socialist leader Olivier Faure said. “As things stand — and I say this with a degree of dismay — we haven’t found a reason not to censure him.”
France’s fragmented parliament comes at a difficult moment for the country, leaving it without a budget for 2025 as its deficit widens. Lawmakers adopted a stopgap funding measures this week that will allow the state to collect taxes and conduct the minimum spending to avoid turmoil, but a new government is needed to pass a permanent budget for next year.
Bayrou said he didn’t wish the deficit target to be as high as 6% of economic output, but declined to say whether he would keep former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s target of reducing the deficit to 5% from 6.1% this year.
“We can find a balance that respects the plan and is also acceptable, bearable and sustainable,” he said.
(Updates with timing for a new government from the first paragraph.)
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