The wait was short this time. At 12:45 on December 13, the President of the Republic officially announced François Bayrou, president of the MoDem, as the new Prime Minister succeeding Michel Barnier.
His name had already been circulating for several days as the favourite for the post, but the predictions proved correct. The mayor of Pau and president of the MoDem therefore takes over from Michel Barnier, who will not have reached the two-month mark in the post of Prime Minister.
Aged 73, François Bayrou was no longer in the lead in the race since this morning. Indeed, a senior minister who resigned revealed to the political service of France Télévision that Emmanuel Macron called Mr. Bayrou at 5am this Friday to tell him that he would not be selected for the position. A tense interview between the two men followed, lasting nearly two hours at 8:30am, from which François Bayrou emerged visibly unhappy. Finally, the trend reversed since at 12:45pm the same day, his name was officially announced as that of the new Prime Minister.
The centrist position of the ally of the presidential camp is seen as a good point for this minister who will have to succeed in negotiating a non-censorship agreement in order to try to govern.
François Bayrou, mayor of Pau, joined Édouard Philippe's first government as Minister of Justice. However, he was forced to leave the post a month after his appointment due to a preliminary investigation into suspicions of fictitious employment linked to MoDem parliamentary assistants. Although the case was dismissed in February, the prosecution appealed. The appeal trial has not yet been scheduled, and if François Bayrou were still a minister at that time, it would be a first for a sitting Prime Minister.
As soon as the government is appointed, François Bayrou will have to focus on restarting discussions concerning the draft budget for 2025. A special law, presented next Wednesday to the Council of Ministers, should allow the government to raise taxes and use credits according to the 2024 budget. It will be examined on December 16 in the Assembly.
It should be noted that neither the NFP nor the RN have announced any censure planned in principle. Both camps have in fact warned that they will not give up using this power but that they will give the new Prime Minister a chance as long as he does not continue in the line of Macronism.
