The office of the French President Emmanuel Macron, on Thursday disclosed that he will name a new prime minister on Friday morning, as pressure mounted to fill the post a week after MPs toppled the government.
“The statement naming the prime minister will be published tomorrow morning,” the Elysée presidential palace said.
Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier, whose government had support only from Macron’s centrist camp was felled last week in a confidence vote over his cost-cutting budget.
His caretaker administration on Wednesday reviewed a bill designed to keep the lights of government on without a formal financial plan for 2025, allowing tax collection and borrowing to continue. Lawmakers are expected to widely support the draft law when it comes before parliament on Monday.
On the personality front, Macron’s rumored top pick for a new PM, veteran centrist François Bayrou, raises hackles on both left and right. For the left he would embody a simple “continuation” of the president’s policies to date, Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure has said. Meanwhile, Bayrou is personally disliked by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, still influential on the right and reported to have Macron’s ear.
Other contenders include former Socialist interior minister and Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, serving Defense Minister and Macron loyalist Sébastien Lecornu, or former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. But a name could still emerge from outside the pack, as happened with Barnier in September. Those in circulation “are names that have been around for years and haven’t seduced the French. It’s the past. I want us to look to the future,” Greens boss Tondelier said