Paris:
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to name a new prime minister in the “coming days” to replace Michel Barnier, who was toppled by a no confidence vote after just three months in office.
Macron did not announce a name in an address to the nation late on Thursday and the appointment is no longer expected before Monday, multiple sources told AFP.
Barnier was Macron’s fifth prime minister since coming to power in 2017. Each successive premier has served for a shorter period than their predecessor and given the composition of the National Assembly, there is no guarantee that Barnier’s successor will last any longer than he did.
Here, AFP looks at the four names seen as the most likely contenders.
All the possible candidates so far are men and all were already in the running in September when Barnier was eventually appointed.
But it is far from ruled out that another candidate could emerge, with Barnier himself only coming into contention at the last moment back then.
Sebastien Lecornu
The ultimate Macron loyalist, Lecornu was the only key minister to stay on from the previous government in the last cabinet reshuffle in September, a measure of the importance of his job in the third year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A career politician, Lecornu, still only 38, started out as a parliamentary assistant aged just 19. He has held ministerial posts ever since Macron came to power in 2017 and was promoted to defence minister in May 2022.
He has worked staunchly to keep up assistance for Ukraine, while carefully remaining in the shadows with infrequent media appearances.
Some French media, including BFM-TV, reported that Macron had been close to naming Lecornu in his address on Thursday but decided to take more time after some within the presidential camp said the minister was too right-wing.
Francois Bayrou
A heavyweight politician who has been allied to Macron since he swept to power in the 2017 election campaign, Bayrou heads the MoDem party which is allied to, but not part of, Macron’s centrist force.
Bayrou, 73, was acquitted in February after a seven-year-long case over the fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants by his party, with the judge ruling that he was owed the “benefit of the doubt”.
A three-time presidential candidate, Bayrou was named justice minister by Macron when he took the presidency in 2017.
He resigned the same year when the legal case was opened against him but he remained a key behind-the-scenes ally, with his acquittal opening up a potential return to government.
Xavier Bertrand
Bertrand, 59, is the right-wing head of the northern Hauts-de-France region and previously served as labour and health minister between 2005 and 2012 under presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.
An articulate media performer, Bertrand unsuccessfully sought the nomination of the right-wing Republicans (LR) party to fight the 2022 presidential elections.
He remains close to Sarkozy who, despite criminal convictions in trials since leaving office, wields considerable influence over the traditional right.
Bernard Cazeneuve
Former Socialist Party grandee Bernard Cazeneuve, 61, held the post of prime minister for less than half a year under the presidency of Francois Hollande from 2016-2017.
He is better known for his much longer stint as interior minister under Hollande, which coincided with the radical Islamist attacks on Paris in November 2015.
Cazeneuve quit the Socialists in 2022 in protest at the party’s broad left-wing pact with factions including the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) and still has a tense relationship with his former colleagues.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
