The ministers in the Bayrou government take up their duties
©Ludovic Marin / AFP

The ministers in François Bayrou's government will take up their duties on Tuesday, on the eve of Christmas, as they hand over power to the Prime Minister, who is confident in his ability to avoid censure.

‘I am convinced that the action I am defining before you and the government team will ensure that we will not be censured’, declared the centrist leader on BFMTV on Monday, a few hours after the presentation of his government.

The two former Prime Ministers, Elisabeth Borne, appointed to the Education portfolio, and Manuel Valls, appointed to the Overseas Departments and Territories portfolio, will be under particular scrutiny, as will another returning Prime Minister, Gérald Darmanin, who will hold the Justice portfolio.

At Bercy, the new Minister for the Economy, Eric Lombard, took up his post on Monday evening, replacing Antoine Armand. The former director of the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, presented by François Bayrou as a man of the left, immediately called for ‘our endemic evil, the deficit, to be dealt with’.

This will be the first challenge for the Bayrou team: getting a budget for 2025 through the National Assembly, where on 4 December his predecessor Michel Barnier was defeated by a motion of censure.

The new Prime Minister believes that the presence of heavyweights in his team should help protect him against this, as he has not been able to open up his government further to the left.

François Bayrou, who will deliver his general policy statement on 14 January, indicated on Monday evening that he would not ask the Assembly for a vote of confidence.

‘In the wake of this general policy statement, there will be a sort of vote of confidence because there will probably be a motion of censure’, said the Prime Minister, who “respects the fact that some political forces do not want to be assimilated against their will to the government's policy”.

France insoumise (LFI) has already announced its intention to table a motion of censure. But the Rassemblement National, the largest group in the Assembly, has made it clear that it will not censure the new government a priori.

The opposition has been very harsh with the new government, accusing the Prime Minister in particular of recycling personalities who had previously failed.

A government of the ‘extreme right’ in the form of a ‘provocation’, judged the leader of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure. A team ‘full of people who have been voted out of office and who have contributed to sinking our country’, added Mathilde Panot, leader of the LFI deputies.

The Rassemblement National, for its part, used irony: ‘fortunately ridicule doesn't kill’ because ‘François Bayrou has put together a coalition of failure’, said the president of the far-right party, Jordan Bardella.

For the Republicans (LR), who remain in the government, Laurent Wauquiez spoke of ‘very demanding’ support for François Bayrou, which could be ‘withdrawn’ depending on the direction taken.

The 35-member government team is smaller than Michel Barnier's (42), but not as tightly knit as envisaged, and with almost equal numbers of men and women (18 women and 17 men). There is also a degree of continuity, with 19 ministers being retained.

The new Prime Minister said that he was ‘proud’ of his ‘experienced collective to reconcile and rebuild trust with all the French people’, ten days after his arrival at Matignon and confident that he had met his objective of putting together a government before Christmas.

The new team's first meeting of the Council of Ministers is scheduled for 3 January, with President Emmanuel Macron in attendance.

With AFP.

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