On Friday, December 13, President Emmanuel Macron of France appointed François Bayrou as the new Prime Minister of France. Bayron assumes the mantle amid unprecedented chaos and confusion with the polity and finance of the country. He has the unenviable task before him to steady the rudderless French ship in the choppy water.
Farmer turned premier
A tractor-driving ‘son of the soil’ Bayrou fondly calls himself a ‘country man’. He was born in the village of Béarn in a family of farmers. He grew up in the small village of Bordères, between the Catholic pilgrimage shrine of Lourdes and Nay, the birthplace of the beret, and retains ties with the village with a home there.
Aged 73, a centrist, the president of the European Democratic Party and its French member party, MoDem, Bayrou is one of the most experienced politicians of France, who before the appointment as Prime Minister was the high commissioner of planning, the French government body responsible for leading and coordinating projects linked to social, environmental, and technological issues. He is also the ex-mayor of Pau, a town in southwestern France.
Bayrou, who stammered in early life, defied the prediction of a doctor that he would never be able to perform on the stage, be a teacher, or be a politician—has achieved all. Having been a teacher of classical languages in his 20s and having served as education minister from 1993 to 1997, he was also justice minister of Macron briefly in 2017.
He has run thrice to be president of France and earned the popular moniker of the “third man” of French politics, a name he gained during the 2007 presidential election, during which he presented himself as a “third way” between the right and the left.
Content retrieved from: https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/faltering-economy-divided-polity-how-new-french-prime-minister-accedes-to-a-crown-of-thorns-13844931.html.
