Key Macron ally quits French government

PARIS // French Justice Minister Francois Bayrou, a key ally of President Emmanuel Macron, on Wednesday said he was quitting the government as his party battles a funding scandal.

The move means Mr Macron, who has pledged to clean up French politics after a series of scandals, loses a centrist partner as he seeks to pull together a government to push forward his ambitious pro-business reform agenda.

Mr Bayrou's small centrist MoDem party was in an alliance with Mr Macron's 14-month-old Republic on the Move (REM) movement, and Mr Bayrou was one of three MoDem ministers in the cabinet named by the president last month.All three are now set to leave.

President Macron hopes to complete a partial reshuffle of his month-old government later on Wednesday following a parliamentary election on Sunday gave him and MoDem a commanding majority.

But with Mr Macron's REM party alone winning 308 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, it does not need the support of MoDem's 42 seats, to push legislation through parliament.

"I have taken a decision not to be part of the next government,"Mr Bayrou said.

Mr Macron has promised that his presidency will usher in an era of new, cleaner politics after a series of scandals involving ministers under his Socialist predecessor, Francois Hollande.

However, that pledge makes it difficult for the president to keep MoDem in his government because the party is accused of breaking European Parliament rules by using funds to pay parliamentary assistants who are actually based in France. Paris prosecutors have already opened a preliminary investigation  into the funding claims, which Mr Bayrou has dismissed as false.

Another key MoDem figure, defence minister Sylvie Goulard,on Tuesday announced she was resigning because she could not remain in the cabinet with a potential investigation hanging over the party.

MoDem's third representative in the government, European affairs minister Marielle de Sarnez, is also set to quit, a party source said.

Mr Bayrou, a veteran centrist figure in the French political landscape, was a key Macron backer during the presidential campaign, and his support was crucial in lending legitimacy to the inexperienced 39-year-old.

When Mr Bayrou, 66, threw his weight behind Macron's fledging movement, the future president hailed it as a "turning point" in his campaign.

Government spokesman Christophe Castaner said Mr Bayrou's decision to quit was a "personal choice" which "simplifies the situation".

"He wanted to defend himself in this affair," Mr Castaner told Europe 1 radio.

The opposition Republicans seized on the resignations, calling them "a political scandal" and "a major government crisis".

"A quarter of the government has gone," said Laurent Wauquiez, the conservative party's vice-president.

Earlier this month, Mr Bayrou himself announced plans to ban politicians from hiring family members, one of a raft of measures intended to aid Mr Macron's bid to clear up politics.

Mr Macron has said he wants to restore confidence in politicians, which was severely rattled by allegations that conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon paid his wife around 900,000 euros ($1 million) to work as his parliamentary assistant with little evidence that she did any work.  Mr Fillon has been charged over the scandal, which ruined his presidential bid and possibly his political career. He strongly denies the allegations.

Agence France-Presse