The French Liberals will not vote for the re-appointment of José Manuel Barroso as president of the next European Commission, their leader François Bayrou announced on a talkshow yesterday (4 June).

Speaking during a pre-electoral debate on French public television station France 2, the president of the liberal MoDem party, François Bayrou, said his party would oppose the re-appointment of Barroso, which needs the endorsement of the European Parliament.

Bayrou was in tune with European Greens co-president Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who long ago launched a 'Stop Barroso' campaign (EurActiv 30/03/09) . He also struck similar chords with Socialist leader Martine Aubry, also present at the debate, who has campaigned in past months to see Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister and current president of the Party of European Socialists (PES), to succeed Barroso.

Aubry explained that the PES had not come up with an alternative candidate so far because Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero had insisted that he would back Barroso out of Iberian solidarity, amid fears that the EPP would otherwise come up with "some Berlusconi friend". According to recent polls, Berlusconi would possibly send the largest national group to the European People's Party (EPP), expected to be the largest group in the next European Parliament.