France danced ‘fatal tango’ with debt, PM Bayrou says as he takes aim at predecessors

PARIS — French Prime Minister François Bayrou slammed the country’s previous leaders and opposition parties for ignoring increasing indebtedness in his first major policy speech, accusing the whole political class of having danced a “fatal tango that brought us to the edge of the precipice.”

“Every party of government, without exception, is responsible for the situation created over the last few decades,” Bayrou told lawmakers on Tuesday. The 73-year-old centrist listed the debt increases under each French president since Socialist François Mitterrand in 1981 — drawing jeers from the various political groups that have been in charge since then.

Bayrou, like his short-lived predecessor Michel Barnier, compared the debt to a “sword of Damocles” hanging over France.

Though Bayrou as prime minister will mostly deal with domestic issues — leaving foreign affairs to President Emmanuel Macron, his ally — he also addressed the fraught geopolitical situation that France and Europe face, caught between a historical ally in the United States that now appears ready to “flaunt” the rules-based international order, and China, which is “weaving the web of its economic, technological, diplomatic and military domination.”

Bayrou mentioned U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s “threats” to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. The prime minister even name-checked Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, who he said represents “the unbridled face of this new world order, or rather this new world disorder, which threatens all balances and all rules of decency.

“It’s time to face the facts. These great powers, whom we respect, it’s up to us to let them know who we are, because without our determination, they’ll forget,” Bayrou said.

This developing story is being updated.