French President Emmanuel Macron is set to announce the appointment of a new prime minister Friday morning, the Elysee Palace confirmed.
The decision comes after Macron missed his self-imposed Thursday deadline as he continues consultations to finalize his choice.
The communique announcing the prime minister will be published tomorrow morning, said sources close to the president shortly after he returned from a visit to Poland.
The new appointee will face the immediate challenge of negotiating parliamentary agreements to avoid a vote of no confidence and secure the passage of the 2025 budget.
Macron's delay underscores the political difficulties he faces as his approval rating remains at a record low of 21%, according to an Elabe poll published Thursday.
The survey highlights waning confidence among his supporters, with only 57% of those who voted for him in the first round of the 2022 presidential election expressing trust in his ability to address France's challenges, down from 91% in May 2022.
- POTENTIAL CANDIDATES
While Macron struggles with his lowest-ever popularity, veteran centrist Francois Bayrou, a potential candidate for the prime minister role, has seen a significant boost in his favorability, L'Express reported.
The poll places Bayrou's positive image at 29%, up 8 points, marking the seventh-highest ranking among political figures.
Other top contenders include former prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, whose approval rating rose 5 points to 28%, and Edouard Philippe, another former prime minister, who remains the most popular political figure with 41% approval.
- Political instability haunts country since June
France has been in a political upheaval since June, when Macron's centrist bloc failed and the far-right National Rally (RN) party won European Parliament elections.
In response, Macron called for two rounds of snap parliamentary elections on June 30 and July 7, but no party won 289 seats, a threshold to achieve an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
The left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP) won the most votes and seats in parliament in the second round and later insisted that the prime minister must be from the alliance, but it failed to nominate a consensus candidate for the position immediately.
After weeks of internal divisions, the NFP nominated Lucie Castets for prime minister on July 23.
However, Macron rejected a left-wing candidate and said he would not appoint a premier until mid-August after the Paris Olympics.
He faced criticism for delaying the process, fueling further instability after he accepted then-Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's resignation on July 16 after initially rejecting it on July 8.
On Sept. 5, Macron finally appointed Michel Barnier, a center-right politician, former European commissioner and former foreign minister, as prime minister.
Barnier's government has become the first to collapse with a no-confidence vote since 1962.
