Emmanuel Macron has yet another stab at finding a prime minister

AFTER OVERGDP a week of trying to square the French political circle, President Emmanuel Macron on December 13th named one of his own as the country’s next prime minister: François Bayrou (pictured). A 73-year-old three-time presidential candidate whose party belongs to Mr Macron’s centrist alliance, he has spent nearly half a century hovering around the political centre. The loyalist Mr Bayrou takes over from the conservative Michel Barnier (also 73) who was by the National Assembly on December 4th after he tried to push through a budget without a vote. The president made his choice after, reportedly, Mr Bayrou threatened to pull out of the centrist coalition. But he is likely to find it just as difficult as Mr Barnier did to produce a new budget for 2025 and shepherd it through a parliament that is split into three hostile minority blocs.Mr Bayrou’s appointment does not stem from a formal agreement between parties to take part in a new coalition. On the contrary, although the president held talks this week with the leaders of political parties from both the centre-left and the centre-right (ie, excluding Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s hard left and Marine Le Pen’s hard right), he failed to broaden the outgoing minority conservative-centrist coalition. The Socialists, who hold 66 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, responded to Mr Bayrou’s appointment by refusing to join the government. The best Mr Macron got was a vague commitment from them that they will not vote Mr Bayrou out straight away. Whereas Mr Barnier’s government depended awkwardly on the tacit support of Ms Le Pen’s National Rally, Mr Bayrou may now rely on tacit backing from the Socialists.To maintain their support in the coming months, Mr Bayrou will be under pressure to concede ground to the left. As well as forming a government, he will next week need to usher through parliament a “special law”, so that the current budgetary measures can be simply rolled over into 2025 as a temporary fix. This, at least, shows no signs of being torpedoed by new political shenanigans in parliament. Mr Bayrou will then be in charge of drafting a fresh budget for 2025, and securing parliamentary approval for it early next year.The calculation facing him is delicate. The Socialists and others on the left have demanded not only higher taxes on the rich but also the reversal of Mr Macron’s pension reform, which raised the legal minimum retirement age from 62 to 64. Yet Mr Bayrou also needs to keep the allegiance of the conservative Republicans, who hold 47 seats. And in the past, at least, Mr Bayrou has vowed to end the French addiction to high levels of public spending. After the political instability of the past few weeks, the markets will be watching closely. France’s government budget deficit is set to exceed 6% of in 2024.Not everyone even in the broad centre will be happy with Mr Bayrou’s appointment. The new prime minister is a familiar figure and an old-time political operator; a part-time farmer, he had been serving as mayor of Pau, in south-west France, but has also been the head of the state planning agency in Paris, and has the president’s ear. In 2017 he gave up his own candidacy for president in order to back Mr Macron’s first election campaign. His politics are fairly fluid. In the past, he has sometimes tacked to the right, serving as education minister under conservative governments in 1993-97. But he has also veered to the left, , a Socialist, over Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency in 2012. Indeed, Mr Bayrou might have become a footnote in modern political history were it not for Mr Macron. To many voters, after a snap legislative election in July that the president lost, his appointment will be regarded as just another tactical move by the political elite to hold on to power. It is “incomprehensible in electoral terms”, said Marine Tondelier, leader of the Greens.Mr Bayrou’s real problem is the deadlocked parliament. No more parties look set to join his government. The hard left promises to vote it down; the hard right is holding judgment. Fresh legislative elections cannot be called until next July. So the new prime minister’s survival may depend on the tacit, fragile and informal support of the Socialists. In short, Mr Bayrou’s chances of survival may be a little better than Mr Barnier’s. But the job of drafting a budget that can secure a majority in parliament looks as difficult as ever. And in the long run, the dismal spectacle of a political class unable to get over their differences and form stable governments is likely to feed yet more support for the extremes.