New French PM Bayrou wants to retain Pau mayor role – is this possible?

France’s new prime minister François Bayrou has only been in office for a week, but is already facing scrutiny for holding too many official job roles. 

Appointed as the new prime minister after right-wing Michel Barnier was ousted in a vote of no confidence on December 4, Mr Bayrou also holds a number of other positions, including: 

• High Commissioner for Planning

• Chairman of the MoDem party (which currently has 33 MPs), 

• Chairman of the European Democratic Party

• Chairman of the Pau Béarn-Pyrénées conurbation

He is also the mayor of Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), a town of around 75,000 in the south-west of France.

It is this last post that is causing headaches for the prime minister before he has even appointed a cabinet and attempted to draft a 2025 budget.

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Mr Bayrou flew to Pau on Monday (December 16) to defend his choice to remain mayor of the town – a role he seems intent to keep hold of – leaving his prime ministerial duties behind. 

These duties included not only the appointment of a cabinet, but the response to a devastating cyclone that hit the overseas department of Mayotte over the weekend, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 18 people.

Mr Bayrou renounced his salary for the mayoral role in a bid to keep hold of it.

The new prime minister is in favour of ending legislation which prevents MPs from holding local positions at the same time as a seat in the Assémblée nationale, however politicians from across the spectrum are against overturning the rules.

Read more: Comment: France's only way forward is for President Macron to resign 

What are France’s mandate limits?

Mr Bayrou is not the first prime minister to also hold the role of mayor in the Fifth Republic.

Previously, Alain Juppé (prime minister from 1995 to 1997, and mayor of Bordeaux) and Jacques Chirac (cumulatively mayor of Paris and prime minister between 1986 and 1988) held dual positions in cities significantly larger than Pau. Pierre Mauroy was prime minister alongside being mayor of Lille in 1981 - 1984. 

In these two latter cases, prime ministers Chirac and Mauroy had held their mayoral role long before being appointed as prime minister, and held them for a significant amount of time after.

Socialist Lionel Jospin, prime minister from 1997 to 2002, required ministers in his cabinet to resign from local roles (such as mayor) although this was an internal Party rule and not official law.

A ban on remaining as a sitting MP whilst holding a ministerial role has always been in place however, and can be found in a 1958 law from the founding of the Fifth Republic.

Changes in 2009 introduced current rules on how the seat is replaced by a deputy or next person on an incumbent MPs party list.

Further legislation on ‘cumul des mandats’ (accumulation of posts) has limited MPs and Senators from holding certain local roles alongside their duties in the chamber since 2014 (the rules My Bayrou wishes to repeal). 

This includes being the mayor (maire) or deputy mayor of a town, city, or commune, as well as being president or vice president of a regional council or metropoles’. 

The legislation does not prevent prime ministers from retaining a local role, however since it was passed the two to hold such a position resigned when being appointed to the head role of France’s government.

Jean Castex (former mayor of Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales) and Edouard Philippe (mayor of Le Havre, Seine-Maritime) renounced their mayorships, with the latter saying being PM “was a full-time job”. 

Both Mr Castex and Mr Philippe retained roles as local councillors during their prime ministership – although not as president or vice-president – and the latter campaigned again to be mayor of Le Havre (winning a mayoral election three months after resigning as prime minister). 

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