French Justice Minister Francois Bayrou, a key ally of President Emmanuel Macron, told AFP on Wednesday he was quitting the government as his party battles a funding scandal. The move means 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. Bayrou’s small centrist MoDem party was in an alliance with Macron’s 14-month-old Republic on the Move (REM) movement, and Bayrou was one of three MoDem ministers in the Cabinet named by the president last month. The trio of MoDem ministers are now all set to leave. Macron hopes to complete a partial reshuffle of his month-old government on Wednesday following a parliamentary election at the weekend that gave him and MoDem a commanding majority.
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