- Source: Bayrou government
The Bayrou government (French: gouvernement Bayrou) is the forty-sixth and incumbent government of France. It was formed in December 2024 after President Emmanuel Macron appointed François Bayrou as Prime Minister on 13 December, replacing caretaker Michel Barnier, after losing a motion of no-confidence, something that not happened since 1962. The motion was supported by the vast majority of New Popular Front and National Rally MPs and all Union of the Right for the Republic MPs.
François Bayrou is the fourth prime minister to hold the office in a single year, the most in the history of the Fifth Republic.
Formation
= Context
=Barnier Government
Following gains by opposition parties in the legislative elections called by President Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2024, the prime minister, Gabriel Attal, the youngest person and the first openly gay person to serve as French prime minister, resigned. Macron initially refused his resignation but accepted it on 16 July. On 5 September, Barnier was appointed as prime minister by Macron. At the age of 73, Barnier was the oldest person to take office as prime minister under the Fifth Republic. The period between Attal's resignation and Barnier's appointment was the longest period that the French Fifth Republic had spent without a prime minister. Dominique Moïsi, a French political scientist, described Barnier as a compromise candidate, chosen to be acceptable to parties from the centre, the right and the far right.
Barnier's initial challenges as Prime Minister were forming a new government, passing the vote of confidence (with a minimum of 289 out of 577 votes) and submitting the 2025 budget by 1 October to parliament according to Reuters, further remarking that it would "be no easy task with the budget deficit already this year running billions of euros over target, leaving Barnier tough choices about calibrating spending cuts and tax rises" and risking the government's position in parliament. On 6 September, Barnier stated that he would continue some of Macron's policies, including refusing to repeal the raising of the retirement age to 64. On immigration he said, "There still is a feeling that our borders are sieves and that migration flows aren't being controlled." In an interview, he remarked that the new government would include the "presidential camp" and "maybe maybe ministers of the previous government".
Barnier was faced with a National Assembly divided nearly evenly into three blocs: the leftist New Popular Front with a plurality of seats, Macron's centrist to centre-right Ensemble, and the far-right National Rally. Marine Le Pen, the leader of National Rally, praised Barnier as "respectful of National Rally voters", but expressed caution as to his legislative agenda. The New Popular Front rejected Barnier's appointment and called for demonstrations against Macron. Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party, accused Macron of a "denial of democracy." Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the left-wing La France Insoumise, said that Macron had "stolen" the election by not appointing a prime minister from the New Popular Front and called for protests against the new government. According to France's Interior Ministry, around 110,000 people took part in these protests, which were held in Paris, Montauban, Nice, Lille, Strasbourg and Montpellier, as well as in several rural areas.
On 2 December 2024, Barnier invoked article 49.3 of the French Constitution to adopt the Social Security budget for 2025 without submitting it to a parliamentary vote. The decision happened after several last-ditch concessions to find a compromise failed, prompting both the New Popular Front and the National Rally to file motions of no confidence against his government. On 4 December, three months into his tenure, the Barnier government collapsed by a vote of no confidence in National Assembly in a 331–244 vote, with the support of all deputies from La France Insoumise, The Ecologists and Union of the Right for the Republic, and also the Socialist Party (except for Sophie Pantel) and National Rally (save for Sophie Blanc). Barnier's government became the first to lose a motion of no-confidence since Georges Pompidou's in 1962.
Searching a new Prime Minister
Prime Minister Michel Barnier then presented his government's resignation in the evening to the President of the Republic, who accepted it. He ensured that current affairs were handled with the government pending the formation of a new government from 6 to 13 December.
After the resignation of the Barnier government, negotiations took place between the President of the Republic and the various parliamentary groups, with the exception of the LFI, RN and UDR. These discussions led Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the Socialist Party, to consider a non-censorship agreement on the condition that the Prime Minister be left-wing.
Over the course of a week, various candidates were considered for the position of Prime Minister, including Bernard Cazeneuve, Sebastien Lecornu, François Villeroy de Galhau, François Baroin, Roland Lescure and François Bayrou.
= Bayrou's appointment as Prime Minister
=After being rejected the day before on 12 December, Bayrou met the President at the Élysée the following morning. At the end of a long, heated discussion (with fears of a break with the MoDem), Emmanuel Macron finally appointed him Prime Minister on 13 December 2024. At 73 years old, he is the second oldest serving Prime Minister, after Michel Barnier, to come to power. He is also considered a loyal supporter of President Macron, whom he supported in 2017 presidential election. He was nominated Minister of State and Justice in the first Philippe Government, between May and June 2017.
François Bayrou was supported by the Macronist bloc, while being rejected by La France Insoumise, while the other left-wing parties and the far right were awaiting the measures taken by the Prime Minister.
Bayrou, in his speech, recalled the importance of social justice, republicanism, national reconciliation, the need to overcome a serious crisis that is ravaging Europe and France, and thanked Barnier for his work as Prime Minister. The case of corruption for embezzlement of European funds, of which Bayrou was acquitted in autumn 2023 due to lack of evidence, was widely reported in the media.
= Popular Front reactions =
Mathilde Panot, President of La France Insoumise group in the National Assembly, considered that "the country has two clear options: continuation (...) with François Bayrou or a break". She indicated that her party intended to censure Bayrou's government as soon as possible. "The MPs will have two options: support for Macron's rescue or censure".
The Socialist Party, in a letter to the new Prime Minister, asked him to give up applying article 49.3 of the Constitution in exchange for no censure, announced that socialists members "will not participate in government and will therefore remain in opposition in Parliament", and blamed the President for "aggravating the political crisis".
National secretary of the Greens, Marine Tondelier, opposed his nomination as prime minister, and denounced that the more cornered Macron finds himself, the more help he asks his loyalists for and that they will monitor that article 49.3 is not used. The lack of censure by the Greens will depend in particular, according to her, on the profiles chosen to compose the government. Greens also want Minister Retailleau 's withdrawal from the government, and reforms on pensions, ecology or taxes. The MP for Somme's 1st constituency, François Ruffin, a member of the Ecologist Group, former LFI activist and founder of the Picardie Debout party, accused Macron of committing a folly that was damaging the country and democracy, and that the president should consider his own resignation.
Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the French Communist Party, said his party would not seek to censure the government in principle. He called on the prime minister not to apply article 49.3 to prevent the communists from supporting the censure of his government, and said that the president's choice of Bayrou, a Macron loyalist, was not correct.
= Far-right reactions =
Just as it did with Michel Barnier, the National Rally has hinted that his MPs will give a chance for the future government, as Jordan Bardella, the party's president, assured. They asked to enforce their party's demands on budget, medicines, economy and pensions.
The president of the RN group in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen, asked Bayrou to listen to the opposition in order to approve a reasonable budget, not like his predecessor Barnier, saying that "the extension of Macronism, rejected twice at the polls, could only lead to blockage and failure".
Eric Ciotti, president of the Union of the Right for the Republic group in the Assembly, assured, like Jordan Bardella, that they will not censure Bayrou in principle, but that he must put an end to the "unbearable tax hemorrhage" of Macronism, not increase immigration or taxes and reduce the State, requesting that there be a government "of consensus, respect and listening".
= Right-wing and centrist reactions =
Les Républicains MPs agreed to not block the new government and demanded him to show to their group his government plan if Bayrou wanted their participation.
Former Les Républicains 2022 presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse, congratulated François Bayrou and added that "the general interest must be our compass" and that "the urgency is to put our finances and our Republic in order".
The outgoing Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, aligned with MoDem, considered in X that the new tenant of Matignon would be able to "respond to the deep needs for appeasement and unity in the country".
Gabriel Attal, former prime minister and president of Renaissance, said that Bayrou was a guarantee of stability because he would seek the general interest, guaranteeing the support of centrist deputies. Roland Lescure, vice-president of the Assembly and a member of Renaissance, argued the same, saying that Bayrou was the man of dialogue that France needed.
= International, organizations and trade-union reactions =
FNSEA and JA - its sister youth association - the largest unions in the agricultural world, urged the Prime Minister for a meeting to maintain the proposals made last winter for solving the economic and social crisis that was affecting farmers.
Environmental groups, for their part, reminded the new prime minister the commitments he made to combat climate change during his 2012 campaign during presidential elections.
In the international arena, Olaf Scholz, German social democrat chancellor and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, congratulated Bayrou on his nomination.
Composition
Bayrou's ministers were named on December.