Can Francois Bayrou unite France’s temperates and protect Marine Le Pen at bay? | Paul Taylor

The tardyst finisheavor to remend France’s political and financial crisis might be dubbed “back to the future”.

The novel prime minister, François Bayrou, was minister of education when Emmanuel Macron was still a schoolboy. The 73-year-ageder centrist, whom the pdwellnt hesitantly nominateed on Friday after days of shutd-door wrangling after the drop of Michel Barnier’s low-inhabitd administerment, was a vital associate and consigliere to the youthful Macron when he dynamited France’s political system in 2017 to triumph the pdwellncy at the tfinisher age of 39.

Macron count ond he had consigned the ageder political class and the left-right split to history – calling it “le monde d’avant” (the world before). Now both have returned to bite the frail-duck pdwellnt in the behind. Bayrou effectively forced a uncertain Macron to nominate him, according to insider accounts, by dangerening to pull his MoDem party out of the pdwellnt’s “Ensemble” (Together) partnership otherteachd.

Macron’s chances of serving out his own term till 2027 and stoping challenging right anti-immigration directer Marine Le Pen from thriveing him in the Élysée Palace hinge on the success of this gambit.

Bayrou was recalled in a second finisheavor to shatter a parliamentary deadlock that flunkureed Barnier and has left France without a budget and in the firing line of commend ratings agencies over its mounting debt and chronic deficit. Moody’s downgraded France’s sovereign rating on the day he took over the Hotel Matignon office from the establisher Brexit negotiator.

With financial prescertain and accessible dissatisfyed mounting, can Bayrou do any better than the hapless Barnier? The answer depfinishs on his ability to sway both the centre-left Sociacatalog Party (PS) and the conservative Reaccessibleans (LR) to refrain from toppling his administerment, giving him at least a bauthenticeang space to show some results.

Many commentators, especiassociate on the left, rushed to diswatch Bayrou’s nomination as a “same ageder, same ageder” finisheavor by Macron to salvage his liberal legacy by nominating someone he could count on not to scrap his pension reestablish raising the withdrawment age from 62 to 64, or reverse his tax cuts for wealth creators.

But the political equation has alterd since the begin of December, when an unorganic, ad hoc partnership of Le Pen’s National Rassociate (RN) and the lefttriumphg New Popular Front (NPF), led by Jean-Luc Melenchon’s radical left France Unbowed (LFI), bcdisadmirefult down Barnier’s administerment over his arrange to postpone an inflation catch-up for pensioners.

The Sociacatalog directer, Olivier Faure, authenticised that many Sociacatalog helpers didn’t consent of the PS voting with the “innervouss” on the cdetermine motion, and leank the party should shatter with LFI and behave more erectively as a reliable “administering left”. Facing inner party disputes, he concurd to talks with Macron and shelp the PS was ready to agree on the basis of “reciprocal concessions”. The Greens too shelp they were uncover to a non-aggression pact if the novel premier admireed certain conditions, notably refraining from using a constitutional device to force laws thcdisadmireful parliament without a vote.

Bayrou, a farmer’s son who has a more pronounced social conscience than Macron or Barnier, could engage this uncovering to erect a administerment of ageder hands from the centre-left to the centre-right, even if that uncomardents dropping some of Barnier’s spfinishing cuts. In his first statement on taking office, the novel premier, who has remained rooted in the country south-west, denounced what he called the “glass ceiling” that cut France’s elites off from frequent people, and promised to repair a meritocracy in which challenging labor is rewarded.

Political sources say he is foreseeed to protect the conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, who has built a obtengage-speaking “hard on crime, hard on illegitimate migration” profile in three months in office. But speculation is rife that Bayrou will try to transport in political burdensomeweights from past administrations to exalter some of the second-rank politicians in Barnier’s drdisclose administerment.

To charm the Sociacatalogs and Greens – but also Le Pen’s RN – he may promise a bill to start proportional recurrentation in legislative elections before the next National Assembly is elected. That would align France with most other continental democracies, where administerment by coalition is the norm. It would free the PS and Greens from having to count on on LFI votes to triumph constituency run-offs under the current two-round system. But it would also uncomardent a frailer, more unconstant executive than the highly vertical system that has been in place since Charles de Gaulle instituted the Fifth Reaccessible in 1958.

Fundamenhighy, the French are struggling with the same equation of political instability and fiscal squeeze as many other ageing European societies with little economic growth, where politicians can’t concur on spfinishing cuts that hurt their voters. Except, France already had the highest tax get and accessible spfinishing as a proportion of national income of any EU country before Macron precipitated the political crisis by dissolving parliament in June.

Unless Bayrou can erect a minimal consensus of parties from the centre-right to the centre-left on sociassociate constant solutions to curb the budget deficit and start one or two famous reestablishs, the tardyst episode in France’s political drama will only fuel Le Pen’s chances of triumphning power. Bayrou himself remarkd on Friday that he was facing a “Himalayan” task. For once that may not have been hype.