France’s far right National Rally disinclined to censure PM François Bayrou

The week that was already being hailed as “crucial” for François Bayrou seems so far to have brought him nothing but good news.

While a motion of censure filed by the far-left party France Unbowed (LFI) threatened to topple his government, the Socialist Party’s national office announced on Monday that it had taken the decision to abstain from the vote.

The effort was launched by LFI after Bayrou invoked a rarely-used constitutional device to ram though the state and social security budgets without a parliamentary vote.

Despite LFI’s outrage, Bayrou has been reprieved not just by the socialists, but by RN — currently the largest group in the National Assembly, with 124 MPs.

Asked on French radio whether his party would vote for the motion of censure on Wednesday, RN President Jordan Bardella said he wanted to “avoid uncertainty”.

The president of the nationalist party, Bardella seemingly picked up on socialist rhetoric, questioning whether the French people would benefit from the censure if it passed.

“In the current climate — which may change tomorrow — the French would not benefit from a new form of instability that could have more serious consequences for the economy than the previous censure”, Bardella said.

At the same time, Bardella — who also chairs the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament — was quick to criticise “a budget that is extremely bad for the nation, for the purchasing power of our compatriots and for our country’s economic activity”.

“We fought against it, we are in opposition and by definition opposed to this budget presented by François Bayrou’s government,” he said, while pointing out that his MPs “have won some undeniable victories over the last few weeks.”

“There will be no delisting of medicines, electricity was cut by 15% on 1 January for 24 million households, and retirement pensions have been reindexed.”