Nine days after the fall of his rather unfortunate government Michel Barnierthe president finally succeeded Emmanuel Macron to arrive at his choice Francois Bayrou for the prime ministership of France, although all estimates speak rather of a solution of necessity.

A conclusion reached in episodic fashion during Friday morning. It started with Bayrou’s invitation to the Elysee Palace at 8.30am, followed by the announcement of his appointment at 12.42pm French time. In the intervening hours, it is believed that a strong “bra de fer” took place between the two men, since Bayrou, at 72 years old, believed that his turn had come, while everything indicated that Macron’s preference was leaning towards the resigned defense minister Sébastien Lecorny.

In front of the… Himalayas

Today, however belatedly, France once again has a prime minister, but still no government and certainly no budget, and it is “at the foot of a Himalaya of difficulties”, as the country’s fourth prime minister stated yesterday upon assuming his duties in a time.

And the first difficulty, which arose at the same time as his appointment, is the downgrading of the country’s economy by one level by the rating agency Moody’s to Aa3, with the assessment that “it is highly unlikely that the next government will sustainably reduce the scale of fiscal deficits.”

A life goal

Debt and deficit reduction has been Bairou’s obsession throughout his political career. And therefore he began his maiden speech from his new position: “It is a moral obligation to our children not to leave them with the burden of our own debt”, he underlined. Thus, everyone is waiting to see how he will manage to survive at least for a few months, creating majorities at least on a subject.

As the leader of the center (Modem) he has the advantage of being able to chat with her as well Right and with her Left. But his big disadvantage for the so-called anti-Macronists is that he helped the president in his first election in 2017 and remained loyal to him until yesterday. This is likely to constitute a significant obstacle in the search for allies beyond the sure “Macronics” and ultimately lead France to new political adventures. It is not the beginning of the crisis, but it is certainly not the end of it either.