“Difficult Himalayas” in France: what awaits the new prime minister

The fourth prime minister in a year, Bayrou gets his hands on a France more divided than ever. “I am aware of the Himalayas before us.”

The newly appointed French Prime Minister, François Bayrouargued this Friday that “reconciliation is necessary” to overcome the political impasse that France is currently experiencing, opening the door to collaboration with all parties.

“Everyone knows the difficult situation where we find ourselves. But there is a path that we have to find, that of unity instead of division”, said the new head of government to the press, in his first statement since his by French President, Emmanuel Macron: “reconciliation is necessary”.

Bayrou, 73, was appointed a week after conservative Michel Barnier’s motion of censure, voted by the left and far right, after three months in office.

This appointment “comes at the right time, because it coincides with the anniversary of the birth of Henry IV”, said Bayrou, referring to the king who, with the phrase “Paris is worth a mass”, put an end to the wars of religion in 19th-century France. XVI, and of which he is one of the main scholars.

The French “Himalayas”

François Bayrou will have an enormous task at the head of the Government, with the State Budget for 2025 as a priorityat a time when the France is heavily in debt and the Social Security budget project led to the downfall of its predecessor.

Now Bayrou, the fourth prime minister in a year, finds a France more divided than ever.

With the radical left France Insubmissa (LFI) guaranteeing a motion of censure, the remaining opposition parties were not satisfied with the appointment of the centrist, but they guaranteed not to censure the new head of Government ‘a priori’, wanting to know his political objectives first.

The Socialist Party (PS) sent a letter to Bayrou asking him to abandon the 49.3 mechanism (which allows the approval of bills without voting) in exchange for non-censorship and also not to depend on the far-right party National Union (RN ) by Marine Le Pen.

In the same letter, the PS announced that “it will not participate in the [seu] government and will therefore remain in opposition in Parliament.”but they ask Bayrou to meet “as soon as possible” with the presidents of the parliamentary groups of the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP) and, more generally, with “those who led the Republican Front”.

Socialists consider that “by choosing once again a prime minister from his own camp”, Emmanuel Macron “takes responsibility for worsening the political and democratic crisis in which he has placed the country since the dissolution of the National Assembly”, when the legislative elections should have led to the appointment of “a left-wing prime minister”.

“No one knows the difficulty of the situation better than me”, said the new prime minister upon receiving Barnier’s portfolio: it is a “Difficult Himalayas”.

“I am aware of the Himalayas that we have before us, of the difficulties of all kinds, the first is budgetary, naturally, then political and then the disintegration of the society in which we find ourselves”, he listed.

For Monday, the National Assembly is scheduled to vote on a “special law” to ensure continuity of State financing. The “special law” will temporarily extend the 2024 budget rules, until the new French Government gets the 2025 budget approved.