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FrancestumbledGDPYour browser does not support the element. into the holiday season with its fourth prime minister this year, no new government and only an emergency rollover budget to get it through the first months of 2025. François Bayrou is a wily veteran, a 73-year-old fellow centrist whom President Emmanuel Macron appointed to form a government on December 13th. He hopes to broaden the coalition formed by Michel Barnier, his conservative predecessor, who was toppled by parliament on December 4th. Even if Mr Bayrou manages to recruit more widely, however, he will struggle to put in place what France really needs: a stable, lasting government that can begin to get its dismal public finances under control.The circumstances of Mr Bayrou’s appointment were downright bizarre. A tractor-driving part-time farmer from a town at the foot of the Pyrenees, the new prime minister was a centrist decades before Mr Macron transformed centrism into a powerful electoral platform. A three-time presidential candidate, Mr Bayrou stood down in 2017 to allow his junior to carry the centrist banner alone, with astonishing success. Yet their bonds have at times been strained. Mr Macron seems to have had others in mind for the job, including two loyalists, Sébastien Lecornu and Roland Lescure. In the end, says Mr Bayrou’s camp, the older politician forced the president’s hand by threatening to pull out of the centrist alliance, setting up an unconventional power dynamic.Upon his appointment, Mr Bayrou referred to a “Himalaya” of difficulties ahead, the first being the budget. This was underlined by Moody’s, a ratings agency, which on December 14th downgraded France’s sovereign debt one notch to Aa3. It considers that the country’s public finances “will be substantially weakened over the coming years, because political fragmentation is more likely to impede meaningful fiscal consolidation”. Mr Barnier’s previous budget, which he tried and failed to force through parliament, was designed to curb the budget deficit from over 6% of in 2024 to 5% in 2025. The emergency budget law, passed on December 18th, rolls over current measures, but contains no further effort at fiscal consolidation. Mr Bayrou’s new government will need to start afresh in the new year.It is unlikely to be any simpler. The parliament remains split into three deadlocked blocs. Fresh elections cannot be called before July 2025. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left says it will seek to vote Mr Bayrou down. The Socialists, beginning to free themselves from Mr Mélenchon’s grip, sound more co-operative—but say they will not join the government. The conservatives are likely to take part, if they, in turn, get what they want.The hard-right Marine Le Pen, who was pivotal in Mr Barnier’s downfall, has at times sounded warmer towards Mr Bayrou, but now says she is preparing for an early presidential election. Mr Mélenchon has been demanding Mr Macron’s resignation for months. The president retorts that he has no intention of leaving office before the end of his term in 2027. Perhaps Mr Bayrou’s best hope of survival is that, apart from the political extremes, no party has an interest in putting the sort of political pressure on Mr Macron that might, just, bring the presidential vote forward.
