François Bayrou faces a dilemma ? The new Prime Minister meets the political forces this Thursday at Matignon, but not LFI or the RN

François Bayrou invites political forces, excluding LFI and RN, to Matignon on Thursday before announcing his government, a delicate exercise between the demands of the different parties and Les Républicains who threaten not to participate.

The Prime Minister invites at 2 p.m. the presidents of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet and the Senate Gérard Larcher, as well as “the presidents of parties and groups that have been responsible for the country's affairs at one time or another of the Fifth Republic”.

Contempt, according to the RN

Namely all except La France insoumise – which did not wish to go to Matignon for the bilateral talks -, the National Rally and its ally the UDR of Éric Ciotti. Blowing hot and cold since the appointment of the president of the MoDem, the National Front party, which wanted to be received at Matignon, is raising its voice.

By refusing to invite us, François Bayrou“despises the National Rally and its millions of voters”, the party's vice-president Sébastien Chenu lambasted on X.

“He should have invited the political parties that had responsibilities during the Fourth Republic instead. At least they would have had something to talk about”, mocked Marine Le Pen.

As for the head of the Ecologists, Marine Tondelier, she wants to discuss with the leadership of her party and her political partners of the New Popular Front before deciding whether or not she will go to Matignon.

The first steps of the new Prime Minister aret “completely missed”, she commented on BFMTV. He has been “the laughing stock of the French” since his return trip to his city of Pau, in the midst of the crisis in Mayotte.

In his letter, Mr. Bayrou invokes, in parallel with the political and budgetary crisis, the situation of the archipelago devastated by a cyclone, “probably the most serious natural disaster in the history of France for several centuries” , but also New Caledonia, considering that “these two situations combined” place political leaders “in front of unprecedented responsibilities”.

Matignon also denied Tuesday afternoon to the AFP that the head of government has submitted a first list of ministers to the head of state. François Bayrou continues his delicate exercise of forming a government “of personalities”.

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On Wednesday, he received the leaders of the Radical Party at Matignon, then Éric Ciotti, and the president of the Macronist senators François Patriat, before the president of the RDSE group in the upper house, Maryse Carrère.

Towards a new censure ?

He had previously received the resigning Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau. The latter had just estimated that the conditions were “not met” for him to remain in government. Speaking on behalf of his party, he explained that LR “will try to see in the coming days if a certain number of obstacles are removed”. “It would be the height of irony if the government were to pull to the left when France itself is on the right.”

The far right is also making demands. The LR president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand or the former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in the team, it's no, for the RN deputy Laure Lavalette. They “do not embody the break” with Macronism that the French people want, she justified on France Inter.

Beyond that, it was increasingly clearly stated threats of censorship that raised the stakes on Wednesday.

“If François Bayrou does not take into account the errors that Michel Barnier may have made, both in form and substance, he will also head towards the same consequences, that is to say, sooner or later, towards censorship”, warned Sébastien Chenu. The National Front party is also challenging him on the budget.

Because, if Parliament has definitively adopted a special law to authorize the executive to collect taxes and borrow to finance the State and Social Security, this will not spare the government from urgently tackling the task of providing France with a budget for 2025.

A government in the coming days ?

On the left, Marine Tondelier believes that François Bayrou is already “paving the way for his own censorship”. As for the communist group, it plans to vote for censure as soon as the general policy statement is made on January 14.

More moderate, Johanna Rolland, first secretary delegate of the PS, called for having “interlocutors (…) who tell us the path of compromise, to move towards non-censorship”. In the middle of each of these obstacles lies another unknown: when will François Bayrou be able to present his government ?

A new meeting at the Elysée took place on Wednesday afternoon between the two heads of the executive. Previously, Mr. Bayrou received his predecessor Gabriel Attal, now head of the Macronist deputies.

In any case, there will be no government announcement a priori before Sunday. The President of the Republic is traveling to Brussels (European Council) on Wednesday, then to Mayotte on Thursday and finally to the French troops in Djibouti and will return to France on Sunday morning.