“We are not ashamed of negotiating,” Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure told lawmakers on Thursday before the vote. “We are and will remain in the opposition … but we’ve showed our openness to compromise.”
The Socialists had previously signaled they might support Thursday’s no-confidence motion if they weren’t given assurances that the pensions debate would be reopened in the parliament even if negotiations failed.
However, Faure said that his party’s decision not to vote for this no-confidence motion should not be interpreted as part of a long-term pact — and that the Socialists could vote to oust the prime minister at “any time.”
Though Bayrou was expected to survive Thursday’s vote, getting the Socialists on side augurs well for a political future that looked bleak as recently as last month, when he became France’s fourth premier in a calendar year. Like his short-lived predecessor, Michel Barnier, Bayrou is attempting to get an unpopular budget, designed to rein in France’s skyrocketing budget deficit, past a fractured legislature that has little appetite for compromise.
The Socialists, the most centrist-leaning faction within the pan-left New Popular Front alliance, have been willing to work with the new government in the name of stability — though they have repeatedly said their cooperation would depend on the government’s suspension of the pensions law, which raised the retirement age from 62 to 64 for most workers.
Bayrou stopped short of suspending the reform, arguing that doing so would cost the state billions at a time when France needs to cut public spending. He instead vowed to convene a new round of talks with industry representatives and labor unions.