France’s Macron seeks new PM after Barnier resigns

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday sought a new prime minister to prevent France from sliding deeper into political turmoil after Michel Barnier’s government was ousted in a historic no-confidence vote in parliament.
Contemporary France’s shortest-serving premier, Barnier met Macron at the Elysee Palace to submit his resignation after Wednesday’s parliamentary defeat forced his government to step down.
Macron was at 1900 GMT due to address the nation after the first successful no-confidence action since a defeat for Georges Pompidou’s government in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president.
“The prime minister today submitted the resignation of his government” to Macron, who has “taken note” of the resignation, the Elysee said. Barnier and his ministers remain “in charge of daily business until the appointment of a new government,” it added.
Macron will not reveal the name of the new premier in the address, said a source close to the president, asking not to be named.
But the president, who only returned late Wednesday from a state visit to Saudi Arabia, is in a hurry to appoint the new premier to avoid a vacuum, according to multiple sources who spoke to AFP.
Limiting any impression of political chaos is all the more important for Macron who on Saturday will host world leaders — including US president-elect Donald Trump — for the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris after a devastating 2019 fire.
National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of the president’s centrist faction, urged Macron to quickly choose a new premier, saying France could not be allowed to “drift” for long.
In an unusual move, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, France’s top diplomat for just two-and-a-half months, urged unity in a message on social media, saying “instability is vulnerability” at a time of international uncertainty.
A majority of lawmakers on Wednesday supported the no-confidence vote proposed by the hard left and backed by the far right headed by Marine Le Pen.
Barnier’s ejection in record time came after snap parliamentary elections in June resulted in a hung parliament. No political force was able to form an overall majority and the far right held the key to the government’s survival.
The trigger for Barnier’s ouster was his 2025 budget plan, including austerity measures unacceptable to a majority in parliament, but which he argued were necessary to stabilize France’s finances.
On Monday he forced through a social security financing bill without a vote, but the ousting of the government means France is still without a budget.
“Macron alone in the face of an unprecedented political crisis,” headlined daily newspaper Le Monde.
Moody’s, a ratings agency, warned that Barnier’s fall “deepens the country’s political stalemate” and “reduces the probability of a consolidation of public finances.”
Strike calls across transport, education and other public sector services were maintained on Thursday despite the disappearance of the austerity budget that has prompted anger.
New legislative elections cannot be called until a year after the previous ones in summer 2024.
But while Macron has more than two years of his presidential term left, some opponents are calling on him to resign to break the deadlock.
“We are now calling on Macron to go,” said Mathilde Panot, head of the parliamentary faction of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, urging “early presidential elections.”
According to a poll by Odoxa-Backbone Consulting for Le Figaro daily, 59 percent of French want the president to step down while a survey by Harris for RTL put the figure even higher at 64 percent.
Macron has vehemently rejected such a scenario, calling it “political fiction.”
Taking care not to crow over the government’s fall, Le Pen said in a television interview that, once a new premier was appointed, her party “would let them work” and did not call on Macron to resign.
Barnier is the fifth prime minister to serve under Macron since he came to power in 2017. Each successive premier has served for a shorter period and, given the composition of the National Assembly, there is no guarantee that Barnier’s successor would last any longer.
Loyalist Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and Macron’s centrist ally Francois Bayrou have been touted as possible contenders, as has former Socialist premier and interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
Bayrou, who leads the MoDem party, had lunch with the president at the Elysee, a source close to him told AFP.