Paris (AFP): The main French far-right party on Thursday rejected a compromise with Prime Minister Francois Bayrou over the budget, saying it was “too late” to make a deal.
Bayrou has staked his survival on a confidence vote he has called for September 8 after months of deadlock over the budget, which the government wants to slash spending.
But with the far right and left-wing parties pledging not to back him, analysts say his premiership is likely to be doomed, only months after he took office in December.
“Too late. Mr prime minister, you have missed many opportunities to construct a budget that benefits the French people,” National Rally (RN) deputy leader Sebastien Chenu told TF1 television.
“The page has been turned. Dialogue is in the past,” he said.
Bayrou, 74, had said late on Wednesday he would host party leaders for talks from Monday.
He said he was ready to start negotiations on the condition that parties commit to savings measures to reduce France’s debt pile.
He said that he had not approached the party leaders previously over the summer as they were “on holiday”, a statement that angered Chenu.
“This statement is not only inadequate but coming from someone who has been twiddling his thumbs for 50 years in politics… It is quite disturbing,” said Chenu.
Should Bayrou lose the vote, he must resign along with his entire government.
President Emmanuel Macron could reappoint him.
Or he could select a new figure who would be the president’s seventh premier since he took office in 2017.
Or he could call early elections to break that political deadlock that has now dogged France for over a year.
But Bayrou warned in an interview that snap elections would not help restore stability after the last elections in summer 2024 left the RN as the largest single party in parliament.
Bayrou acknowledged that he was himself not optimistic about winning the vote, saying: “Today, a priori, we cannot obtain this confidence (from parliament) but we know that there has not been a majority for a long time.”
But he emphasised the importance of helping France’s young people by reducing the country’s debt pile, which he said had built up over the years “for the sake of the comfort of the boomers” of the post-war generation.
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