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French President Emmanuel Macron named Francois Bayrou his fourth prime minister of 2024 on Friday. The veteran centrist will be charged with steering the country out of its second major political crisis in six months.

Bayrou, a close Macron ally, will prioritize passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget. A nastier battle over the 2025 legislation will loom early next year. Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to the downfall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier's government.

Bayrou, 73, is expected to present his list of ministers in the coming days. However, he will likely face the same existential difficulties as Barnier in steering legislation through a hung parliament comprising three warring blocs. His proximity to the deeply unpopular Macron will also prove a vulnerability.

Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally party, said the party would not call for an immediate no-confidence motion against Bayrou.

France's festering political malaise has raised doubts about whether Macron will complete his second presidential term, which ends in 2027. It has also lifted French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.

Macron spent the days after Barnier's ouster speaking to leaders from the conservatives to the Communists, seeking to lock in support for Bayrou. Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally and the hard-left France Unbowed were excluded.

Any involvement of the Socialist Party in a coalition may cost Macron in next year's budget.

"Now we will see how many billions the support of the Socialist Party will cost," a government adviser said on Friday.

No legislative election before the Summer

Macron hopes Bayrou can stave off no-confidence votes until at least July when France can hold a new parliamentary election. However, if the government falls again, Macron's future as president will inevitably be questioned.

Bayrou, the founder of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party, which has been part of Macron's ruling alliance since 2017, has run for president three times. He has leaned on his rural roots as the longtime mayor of the southwestern town of Pau.

Macron appointed Bayrou justice minister in 2017 but resigned only weeks later amid an investigation into his party's alleged fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants. He was cleared of fraud charges this year.

Bayrou's first real test will come early in the new year when lawmakers must pass a bill to tighten the 2025 budget.

However, the fragmented nature of the National Assembly, rendered nearly ungovernable after Macron's June snap election, means Bayrou will likely live day to day at the mercy of the president's opponents for the foreseeable future.

Barnier's budget bill, which aimed for 60 billion euros in savings to assuage investors increasingly concerned by France's six percent deficit, was deemed too miserly by the far-right and left. The government's failure to find a way out of the gridlock has still seen French borrowing costs push higher.

(Reuters)