Francois Bayrou: France's New Prime Minister & Centerist Unifier
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00:00France's new Prime Minister. The centrist politician replaces Michel Barnier, ousted in a no-confidence vote earlier this month.
00:07Bayrou is France's fourth Prime Minister this year. France has been in a political crisis since elections in June, which resulted in a hung parliament.
00:17I think everyone understands the difficulty of the task. I think everyone is also thinking that there is a path to be found, which will unify people instead of dividing them.
00:30And let's get more on this now with our Paris correspondent, Ross Cullen.
00:33Hi there, Ross. So it's a fairly familiar name, Francois Bayrou. What more can you tell us about France's new Prime Minister?
00:43Yes, you heard him there. That was speaking a little bit earlier on before he heads to the Matignon, which is the French equivalent of Downing Street,
00:52the Prime Minister's official office and residence. It's 5pm in just over an hour's time.
00:57That's where he will be meeting Michel Barnier, the outgoing Prime Minister, to exchange positions and to be moving into Matignon and starting to try the process of forming a government.
01:09Earlier on, Mr Bayrou did say that reconciliation is possible. Reconciliation is necessary. It is such a divided political landscape at the moment that he faces.
01:20He's 73, so he's the same age as Michel Barnier. He's from the south of France, the Pyrenees Mountains, the son of a farmer.
01:27He founded the Democratic Movement Party in 2007 and he's led it more or less to the centre in alignment with Emmanuel Macron's party together for the Republic.
01:36And so this is somebody that Emmanuel Macron has worked with for a long time. This is someone who is an ally of the President.
01:43This is someone also who has been congratulated by Michel Barnier and, in the last few minutes, also by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
01:52And he's going to face some fairly steep challenges, isn't he, as Prime Minister?
02:02Yes, the far left would like him to be ousted as soon as he moves into the job.
02:06They have said that they will be putting down a no-confidence vote to try to kick Mr Bayrou out of office.
02:11The first possible opportunity. However, they have not been joined with that plan so far from other political parties.
02:18We know that the far right, Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader here at the National Assembly of the National Rally,
02:24well, the overall party leader, Jordan Bardella, has said that the National Rally will not be voting in favour of a no-confidence vote at the very start.
02:33They want to learn more about Michel Barnier, about Mr Bayrou's priorities going forward, the plan for his government.
02:40Also, the socialists have said that they won't be voting in favour of a no-confidence vote if Mr Bayrou does not use executive powers.
02:48And we've also heard from some of the smaller parties as well.
02:51Somebody who used to be a member of the centre-right Republicans, a man called Eric Ciotti,
02:56he's got a breakaway right-wing group and he's also said no-confidence votes won't be voted by his party for the moment.
03:03He would also like to learn more about Mr Bayrou's programme for government
03:07and he is going to have to choose ministers soon to compose that government
03:11that hopefully, according to Emmanuel Macron, he would like to see a government of all political forces.
03:17So we will see if Mr Bayrou manages to achieve that, appointing people from political parties across the parliamentary spectrum.
03:25Ross, thank you very much for that.