PARIS: When veteran centrist Francois Bayrou, France’s new prime minister, was education minister in the 1990s, his plan to increase subsidies for private schools led to nationwide protests. He quickly caved in and would stay in the post for four more years.
Three decades later he will face a different force in the shape of a fractured and fractious parliament where one of his earliest tasks — as President Emmanuel Macron’s fourth prime minister of the year — will be to pass a budget for 2025.
First he must name a government which, like that of his predecessor Michel Barnier, will have minority support in parliament and be vulnerable to attack from far-right and left-wing opponents.
The ouster of Barnier and his cabinet — the first time France’s parliament had voted to remove a government since 1962 — seemed to stun even those behind the move. For now, there is cross-party support for emergency legislation to ensure government funding does not dry up — but then the hard work on a budget for next year will begin.
“The difficulties remain the same as under Michel Barnier,” Arnaud Benedetti, a professor at the Sorbonne university, told Reuters. “At least, a motion of no-confidence doesn’t seem likely in the very short-term.”
A Macron aide said Bayrou was the “most consensual candidate able to bring people together.” Socialists said he represented more of the same.
A career politician, Bayrou, 73, was the torch-bearer of centrism until Macron reshaped the political landscape in 2017, dynamiting the traditional mainstream parties in a campaign Bayrou rallied behind.
Bayrou has in the past talked tough on the risks posed by France’s rising debt pile.
He did so again on Friday, saying the country’s debt was a “moral problem” as much as a financial one. “I hear your warning on the seriousness of the situation and I agree,” he told Barnier.
But he has placed a high value on keeping the peace, whether with the unions, lawmakers or the myriad of powerful vested interests in France.
Keeping the peace in a National Assembly dominated by three warring factions will be nigh-on impossible, however.
Lawmakers’ pushback over the 2025 budget bill led to Barnier’s downfall and left-wing leaders say they may try to topple Bayrou should he also use special constitutional powers to ram through the budget without a vote in parliament.
“Bringing onboard demands from opposition parties may be fiscally costly and the degree of fiscal consolidation may be limited next year as a result,” said JP Morgan’s Raphael Brun-Aguerre in a note.
Far-rights budget red lines endure
Through the week Macron held talks with party chiefs spanning the center-right Republicans to the Communists.
He appealed to all ‘Republican forces’ to unite but opted to resist Socialist Party calls to appoint a premier from within their ranks, unwilling to risk unwinding reforms that liberalized the euro zone’s second-largest economy and placed the pension system on a more financially sound footing.
Even so, the president’s 2023 pension reform will remain in his opponents’ crosshairs.
“Our red lines remain,” Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally told reporters shortly after Bayrou was named. Those red lines include indexing pensions to inflation throughout 2025.
One opinion poll this week showed that 35 percent-38 percent of voters intended to support Bardella’s boss, Marine Le Pen, in the next presidential election due in 2027 — a level not seen before for the far-right leader and putting her in the lead.
Furthermore, even if Bayrou’s political opponents do not get in the way, the challenges for his future government will be immense.
It will need to reduce the budget deficit from a projected 6.1 percent for 2024 whilst keeping protest-prone trade unions at bay, increasing military spending for Ukraine and finding ways to support an ailing industrial sector.
Barnier had promised to bring the deficit down with tax rises for the wealthy and for big companies, as well as a curbs on the planned rise in pension payments. But these measures fell by the wayside when his government was toppled.
Former finance minister Bruno Le Maire, who has been grilled by lawmakers investigating his role in France’s failure to curb its deficit, gave a scathing indictment of parliament.
“This assembly taxes, spends, censors,” he said. “It has long lost any sense of economic and budget realities.”

SYDNEY: The five remaining members of the Australian “Bali Nine” drug ring have returned home after 19 years in jail in Indonesia, the Australian government said Sunday.
Indonesian police arrested the nine Australians in 2005, convicting them of attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms (18 pounds) of heroin off the holiday island of Bali.
In a case that drew global attention to Indonesia’s unforgiving drug laws, two of the gang would eventually be executed by firing squad, while others served hefty prison sentences.
“The Australian Government can confirm that Australian citizens, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens, Si Yi Chen, and Michael Czugaj have returned to Australia,” Canberra said in a statement.
“The men will have the opportunity to continue their personal rehabilitation and reintegration in Australia.”
Accused ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing squad in 2015 despite repeated pleas from the Australian government.
Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died of cancer in 2018, months before Renae Lawrence was released after her sentence was commuted.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had thanked Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto for his government’s cooperation on the men’s return.
“Australia shares Indonesia’s concern about the serious problem illicit drugs represents,” Albanese said in a statement.
“The Government will continue to cooperate with Indonesia to counter narcotics trafficking and transnational crime.”
The Australian government did not give further details on the agreement with Jakarta, including whether they would need to continue to serve their sentences following their return home.
The Indonesian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Australian government said it had consistently advocated for the men and provided consular support to them and their families during their incarceration.
It asked the media to respect their privacy following their return.
Muslim-majority Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, including the death penalty for traffickers.
It is not uncommon for foreigners to be arrested for drug offenses in Bali, which attracts millions of visitors to its palm-fringed beaches every year.
The release of the Australians follows weeks of speculation that a deal for their return was in the works.
In November, a senior Indonesian minister said Jakarta aimed to return prisoners from Australia, France and the Philippines by the end of this year.
Earlier this month, Indonesia signed an agreement with the Philippines for the return of mother of two Mary Jane Veloso, who was arrested in 2010 after the suitcase she was carrying was found to be lined with 2.6 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of heroin.
Her supporters claim she was duped by an international drug syndicate, and in 2015, she narrowly escaped execution after her suspected recruiter was arrested.
France last month requested the return of its citizen, Serge Atlaoui, a welder arrested in 2005 in a drugs factory outside Jakarta, according to a senior Indonesian minister.