(Bloomberg) -- French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is running out of time to meet his self-imposed deadline to name a new cabinet that won’t be quickly toppled by a no-confidence vote in parliament.
A new team was widely expected to be unveiled over the weekend after Bayrou said last week he and President Emmanuel Macron would finalize their choice before the Christmas holiday.
But after no decision on Sunday, the president’s office said on Monday there will be no announcement before 6 p.m. Paris time.
The previous government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier was evicted from power earlier this month when leftist and far-right lawmakers united to back a no-confidence motion over the 2025 budget bill.
France’s political difficulties began in June when Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called snap elections. The ballot returned a lower house split between three feuding blocs: the leftist New Popular Front alliance, a far-right group led by Marine Le Pen and the president’s centrists.
After Bayrou’s nomination to replace Barnier, Le Pen and some members of the NPF said they would not censure the government outright, so long a there were changes in policy.
To avoid the same fate as his predecessor, Bayrou, France’s fourth premier in a year, has sought to broaden the political base for his future cabinet, notably in talks with more moderate Socialists in the National Assembly. In an effort to soften their opposition, he opened the door to unwinding Macron’s signature pension reform that raised the minimum retirement age to 64 and sparked mass protests last year.
However, the Socialist Party said in a letter to Bayrou late Friday that he has shown insufficient will to break away from policies that led to Barnier’s ouster.
“You still haven’t given us a method or a calendar, and we have not the slightest idea what compromises you yourself would be open to,” the party said.
Still, Bayrou may succeed in tapping some from the left who are no longer in the Socialist party. Francois Rebsamen, who briefly served as labor minister in the government of Francois Hollande, said in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche this weekend he is “ready to commit.”
French media outlets have speculated that Bayrou may also call on Xavier Bertrand, a senior figure on the center-right who heads the northern Hauts-de-France region. However, picking Bertrand risks irking Le Pen, whose party has clashed with him in recent years.
National Rally lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy said on Monday his party wouldn’t censure the government based on its composition, but appointing Bertrand would be a “bad sign” for the policies to come.
“The time taken for this casting set against the urgent crises we are going through is unbearable,” Tanguy said on BFM TV. “Emmanuel Macron likes to lose time.”
The top priority for the new government will be crafting a 2025 budget to replace emergency legislation promulgated on Saturday that ensures the minimum level of spending to avoid a shutdown.
France’s political and budget difficulties have sparked selloffs in the country’s debt in recent months, driving up the country’s borrowing costs compared to European peers. Bayrou has said he aims to finalize the budget by mid-February.
To stay on track with the plans to name a government before Christmas, Macron must either make the appointments on Monday, a day of national mourning for the cyclone catastrophe in the French territory of Mayotte, or on Dec. 24, when many families in France begin celebrating Christmas.
“The deadline indicated by Francois Bayrou and wished for by the president should be respected,” Marc Fesneau, a lawmaker from the premier’s group said in an interview with Sunday paper La Tribune Dimanche. “The composition of the new government should be announced before Christmas.”
--With assistance from Ania Nussbaum.
(Updates with timing of announcement from third paragraph, potential ministers from 10th paragraph)
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