François Bayrou pays his respects. But will he succeed?

President Macron turned to a fellow centrist and one of the country’s most experienced politicians to pull France out of a government crisis.

But if François Bayrou commands so much respect across the political spectrum, it’s hard to see how he can avoid the same pitfalls that felled his predecessor, Michel Barnier.

Although appointed by the president under the constitution, the prime minister can only function with the support of parliament.

And with the National Assembly crippled by the same three-bloc deadlock as since July, with no change possible before July 2025, it would be a frivolous play on words to predict any degree of success for Bairou.

Since Barnier’s fall a week ago – following a no-confidence vote supported by the left and the populist right – Macron has been consulting with various leaders to form a new informal coalition to run the country.

Because Barnier was a man of the traditional right, Macron’s first instinct was to switch to the traditional left, initially focusing his efforts on defending the Socialist Party (PS) in an alliance with the hard left France Unbowed (LFI).

But since PS’s condition was that Macron adopt left-wing policies that he had no intention of endorsing, he was forced to limit his search to his own inner circle.

Bairou has been a close ally of the president even before Macron’s first surprise election victory in 2017. Indeed, Bairou’s decision to stand as a candidate and support a younger man that year created an important dynamic behind Macron’s campaign.

Bai Lu, 73, a well-known figure on the political stage for more than 40 years, has run the Modern Party, which now has 36 lawmakers, since its founding in 2007. Before that, he was the leader of other centrist incarnations.

His departure was in the Gistian democratic tradition of post-war politics, which generally distanced itself from, but supported, the larger Gaullist faction of the French right, led by Jacques Chirac from the late 1970s onwards.

Bai Lu, who was a classical languages ​​teacher in his 20s, served as Minister of Education from 1993 to 1997. But that was his last meaningful experience in government.

He briefly served as Macron’s justice minister in 2017, but resigned after being indicted in a political party funding scandal.

He was eventually acquitted, but many of his associates were found guilty. And prosecutors have appealed his acquittal, meaning he could yet end up back in court.

An observant Catholic and father of six, Bayrou’s political base is in the Pyrenees city of Pau, where he has served as mayor since 2014. He speaks the local Bearnese language and is a strong believer in decentralization.

Bai Lu ran for president three times as the central standard-bearer. He came closest to winning in 2007, when he came in third place with nearly 19% of the vote. He then upset future winner Nicolas Sarkozy by endorsing socialist candidate Ségolène Royal.

If a minority government’s only means of survival is to build bridges between the left and the right, Bai Lu has the advantage of being able to build decent relationships with both.

His support for the royal family and François Hollande in 2012 built a certain credibility among socialists. But his views on debt and the need to reduce it help him to the right.

Interestingly, his relationship with right-wing populist Marine Le Pen is also admirable. In the past, he helped her raise the donations she needed for her presidential bid, arguing it would be an affront to democracy if the leader of the most popular political party was unable to stand.

Similar sentiments have led to support for Le Pen, who recently called for prosecutors in her party’s financing trial (a case similar to her own) to declare her unfit for public office.

This could mean that Bai Lu can avoid automatic condemnation from the populist right.

But Le Pen’s national rally also warned that if the new prime minister were “a Vanier with a different face”, they would not hesitate to bring him down.

According to veteran French political commentator Alain Duhamel, Bairou is an independent-minded and experienced figure who, although allied with Macron, will not hesitate to exercise his power at his official residence, the Hotel Matignon. It is said that it will.

“He will not be easily disciplined,” Duhamel said. “And he will tilt his policies even further to the left.”

The most serious government crisis in France during the Fifth Republic led to a wholesale shift of power from the Elysee to the Prime Minister and the National Assembly.

“The last time we had a situation like this was the (post-war) Fourth Republic, when the president had very little power,” said Christophe Boutin, a constitutional law expert.

“Even today, power lies with groups within Congress who may or may not come together on specific shared policies.”

Bayrou’s first task is to name a new government, which could take several days. This composition will be an indicator of whether he has been able to build bridges with the socialists on one side and Barnier’s conservatives on the other.

But he will have to draw up a new 2025 budget very quickly to replace the one abandoned by the Barnier government. And immediately he will face a revolt from the left and the extreme right.

The idea of ​​some lawmakers for a kind of non-aggression pact, in which the government would promise not to pass legislation without a vote and lawmakers not to vote on condemnation motions, has received support from Macron, who has said he does not want it. The National Assembly will be dissolved again before the end of the term in 2027.

But critics say such a deal would be a green light without any possible agreement on important issues such as reducing the country’s soaring debt.