Emmanuel Macron has appointed the veteran centrist Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of the year.
First elected as an MP in 1986, Bayrou served as the Minister for Education in the 1990s under both the Socialist government of president Francois Mitterrand and the centre-right Jacques Chirac. In 2007 he launched a Centrist party, Mouvement démocrate (MoDem), which rallied to Macron’s support in the 2017 presidential election, even though early on in the campaign Bayrou described Macron as the candidate of the ‘forces of wealth’.
Bayrou already has the left against him and Le Pen is prowling in the background
The 73-year-old Bayrou was announced at lunchtime on Friday after a ‘tense’ meeting earlier in the morning with Macron at the Elysee. Whatever was said between the two men appeared to have ended Bayrou’s chance of becoming PM, but according to reports the president had a change of heart after Bayou stormed out of the Elysee, and reopened negotiations.
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