François Bayrou, the French prime minister appointed at the end of December, gave his first general policy speech on Tuesday, January 14th, under the sceptical gaze of a divided assembly. His performance was generally deemed unconvincing, but he might temporarily escape censure.
The PM took the floor in a very agitated atmosphere and tried to defuse tensions with a bit of humour: “84% of French people think that the government won’t make it through the year. I sometimes even wonder where the other 16% get their optimism from,” he declared.
Bayrou began his speech by recalling the crushing weight of France’s debt—€3,228 billion to date—which determines all future policies. He then announced that he would be reopening the pensions reform project, in line with his negotiations over the last few days with the socialists, who are calling on the government to reverse the most painful points of the law that was rammed through a few months ago and which had aroused great opposition in the country.
On the much-anticipated subject of the budget, the PM remained vague. Bayrou called for efforts to be made, with budgets that would be “redefined and rethought,” adding that ministers would have to prepare them “as early as the spring,” and maintained “the objective of a 3% public deficit by 2029”—without giving any further details of the savings to be made. A “reform of public action” was announced, but no further details were given on that either.
In terms of structural reforms, the prime minister mentioned two areas of work: the simplification of regulations, which are estimated to currently cost the country €4 billion a year, and the implementation of proportional representation in elections, where the number of seats parties win is proportional to the votes they receive. The Rassemblement National (RN) has long called for this reform.
At the end of his speech, Emmanuel Macron’s sixth prime minister chose not to ask the MPs for a vote of confidence—as the constitution allows him to do. It was a perilous exercise, and Bayrou was well aware that his speech was met with a cold reception. “A speech in which there is nothing,” judged Éric Coquerel, of the La France Insoumise (LFI) party and chair of the finance committee. The chairwoman of the green group said she was “appalled” by an “indigent” and “vague” speech.
The RN, represented by MP Jean-Philippe Tanguy, also spared no criticism in response to the PM’s speech, accusing him of “lying about everything” and “remaining indifferent to the suffering of the French people,” particularly in Mayotte.
The RN also judged Bayrou’s proposals on immigration to be insufficient and reiterated its imperatives: “We demand a real law to control immigration, a real security policy and real diplomacy,” Tanguy hammered home from the podium.
However, the RN has chosen not to vote in favour of the motion of censure against the government proposed by the Left, in order to keep up the pressure on the prime minister in the coming weeks and avoid giving the impression that it wants chaos for chaos’s sake. In these circumstances, the RN is once again adopting one of the party’s historic slogans: “Hang in there, we’re on our way.” (“Tenez-bon, on arrive!”)
Meanwhile, another arbiter of the government’s fortunes has emerged: the Socialist Party (PS), which for several days has been negotiating with Bayrou over adjustments to the pension reform in exchange for support for the new finance plan. The PS believes that for the time being “it’s not enough,” but is still withholding its final verdict.
Faced with the motion of censure put forward by the far Left and due to be examined at the end of the week, the PS could break away from LFI—contrary to what happened at the beginning of December when Michel Barnier fell.In the absence of the votes of the PS, the addition of the votes of LFI and the RN would not be enough to bring down François Bayrou. The French government is therefore once again on borrowed time, and for an indefinite period.
