New French PM Bayrou will meet far-right leader Le Pen on Monday

PARIS (Reuters) – New French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou will meet with the heads of parliamentary groups on Monday and Tuesday, starting with Marine Le Pen of the far-right Rassemblement National, he told La Tribune Dimanche in an interview.

Bayrou, whose appointment on Friday made him the fourth person to serve as French prime minister this year, will be responsible for steering a 2025 budget through the fractious parliament. It was the same task that ultimately toppled his predecessor Michel Barnier, whose three-month tenure was the shortest in modern French history.

Bayrou’s meetings will take place in order of the size of the parties. Le Pen’s Rassemblement National won most seats when President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election in June, but failed to secure a majority.

A leftist alliance called the New Popular Front is the largest bloc.

“My first job is to be a builder and, failing that, a repairman,” Bayrou told the newspaper.

Barnier sought to implement tax increases on corporations and wealthy individuals to cut a deficit that is expected to reach 6% of Gross Domestic Product at the end of this year. He was unable to find a parliamentary majority to back the plan, with Le Pen saying Barnier should have done more to incorporate her party’s concerns.

After Barnier sought to pass the bill without a majority vote, lawmakers from the far-right and left backed a no-confidence vote and he resigned.

Credit rating agency Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) handed France an unexpected downgrade late on Friday, to “Aa3” from “Aa2,” saying that the next government was unlikely to materially reduce the country’s deficit and that the public finances would be weaker over the next three years than their October baseline scenario.