French President Emmanuel Macron named Francois Bayrou as PM today, a little more than a week after the previous PM was ousted in a no-confidence vote. Bayrou is a centrist who heads the Democratic Movement, a party allied with Macron’s Renaissance party. He becomes France’s fourth PM this year. (Washington Post)
Our Take
The appointment of Bayrou marks Macron’s second attempt to manage the fallout from his fateful decision to call snap legislative elections in June, which left parliament without a majority alliance as the country hurtles toward a budget crisis. He first tried to placate the center-right in his informal minority coalition by appointing Michel Barnier. But in alienating the left-wing coalition that finished first in the elections, that strategy also left Barnier beholden to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, which was ultimately its undoing.
Now, Macron has moved on to a different strategy: holding the center. His hope is that Bayrou, a well-known but not necessarily well-liked centrist, will be more palatable to the center-left Green Party and the more centrist wing of the Socialist Party, both of which have shown some openness to working with the new government. The trouble is that both the Greens and Socialists are currently allied in a parliamentary bloc with the far-left France Unbowed, which has already vowed to bring a no-confidence vote against Bayrou.