Bayrou’s immediate challenge will be to form a government that isn’t immediately taken down by the opposition – a difficult task considering his ministers will mostly hail from a narrow coalition of pro-Macron and conservative MPs of the previous cabinet.
The hard-left France Unbowed has already vowed to bring forward a no-confidence motion against Bayrou, though Marine Tondelier, the head of the Greens and a prominent voice in the French center-left, said her party would wait — but that it would have “no other choice” but to topple the new prime minister if he keeps in place Macron-era policies and outgoing ministers in key roles.
National Rally President Jordan Bardella called on Bayrou to engage with opposition parties but said that the premier held “no democratic legitimacy or majority” and that the party’s red lines which brought down Barnier had not changed.
Bayrou, now finally in a post he has eyed for years, has proven himself to be a political survivor. The 73-year-old from southwest France has already held two high-ranking positions in government, serving as education minister under conservative Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in the 1990s and a brief stint as justice minister immediately after Macron’s election in 2017 — a job he was forced to resign after less than a month when he was placed under formal investigation for allegedly embezzling European Parliament funds.
At the time, Macron’s policy was that no one under formal investigation could be kept in government, a rule the president has since given up on.
Bayrou was eventually acquitted due to reasonable doubt, though prosecutors have appealed that decision. Other members of his centrist party — which is aligned with Macron’s — were sentenced to fines and suspended prison sentences after having been found guilty of paying party employees as parliamentary assistants to MEPs. Le Pen is currently on trial over similar allegations that threaten to derail her presidential ambitions. She has repeatedly maintained her innocence.
Sarah Paillou and Clea Caulcutt contributed to this report