(Bloomberg) -- Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she left with a positive impression after meeting with new French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, who is holding talks with party leaders in an effort to form a new government.
“I was listened to,” Le Pen said on French television as she and Jordan Bardella, the head of her National Rally party, left the meeting. “It’s perhaps a little early to say if we were heard, but we were listened to.”
Le Pen’s discussion with Bayrou was the first of several the prime minister is holding Monday. Bayrou was named Friday by President Emmanuel Macron after the previous government of Michel Barnier fell in a no-confidence vote backed by Le Pen.
Bayrou’s choice to meet with Le Pen reflects her growing clout in the wake of snap elections in July that left Parliament divided into three groups, none of which have a majority. The effort to form a government and craft a budget took on added urgency, after Moody’s Ratings over the weekend cut France’s credit rating, citing its weak finances and political gridlock.
The yield premium on French 10-year government bonds over German equivalents, a closely watched gauge of risk, widened slightly to 79 basis points Monday. That spread approached 90 basis points in late November, which was the widest since 2012.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Le Pen said. “The prime minister said to us that he wanted all members of parliament to be treated totally equally, that each political group be heard, be respected, which is evidently a source of satisfaction for us.”
Bayrou also met with the Socialists on Monday, and is set to speak with Gabriel Attal, the head of Macron’s party in the National Assembly, as well as the center-right Republicans.
“We belong to an opposition that is open to compromise,” said Socialist leader Olivier Faure after meeting with Bayrou.
He however said the two didn’t reach a pact of non-censorship of the future government.
Le Pen’s party voted in favor of a no-confidence motion from the left-wing New Popular Front coalition to oust Barnier after he pushed through a 2025 budget bill using a constitutional provision that allowed him to do so without a vote in Parliament. The far-right leader sought a slower pace of deficit reduction, while the left pushed for higher taxes and a reversal of Macron’s pension reforms, which raised the retirement age.
Le Pen has previously said she is willing to work with the next government so long as it takes a less aggressive approach to cutting the deficit. France can overcome a government collapse to deliver a budget in “a matter of weeks” — so long as the next prime minister is prepared to narrow the deficit more slowly, she said in an interview with Bloomberg this month.
Bayrou, who is supported by Macron’s centrist coalition, aims to placate Le Pen while also winning some backing from the center-left Socialist Party, which has shown signs of breaking from the further-left France Unbowed.
The left’s disagreements with Barnier went beyond the budget. The Socialists and the Green Party are both pushing the new prime minister to back off from the hard line on immigration taken by Barnier’s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, while the center-right Republicans are pushing Bayrou to keep him in a new government.
(Adds Socialist leader comments in the 8th paragraph)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.