Another French government has effectively collapsed after prime minister François Bayrou lost a confidence vote in parliament, compounding the political crisis facing Europe’s second-largest economy.
What is happening in France?
Bayrou, a centrist politician who has been prime minister since last December, had called a confidence vote in the National Assembly in an effort to force deputies to either back his cost-cutting budget plan or get rid of him.
The gamble backfired. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and left-wing opposition parties voted against Bayrou and his shaky minority government.
A bid to claw back France’s spiralling levels of public debt had dominated Bayrou’s rocky nine months in office. His proposed austerity budget included €44 billion in cuts and savings, including an unpopular plan to scrap two public holidays.
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France’s budget difficulties are causing unease in the financial markets. Bayrou will be the second prime minister to resign in less than a year, after failing to get a tough-love budget past parliament.
Michel Barnier, a conservative grandee and former EU negotiator during Brexit, saw his minority government collapse when he lost a confidence vote in parliament, after using emergency powers to push through spending cuts.
The outgoing government had the support of French president Emmanuel Macron’s centrist allies and the smaller, centre-right Republicans.
Bayrou was banking on his confidence vote gambit pressuring the centre-left Socialist Party to reluctantly row in behind his budget, and Le Pen’s party perhaps abstaining.
Some suggest Bayrou knew his budget was doomed to fail and so he decided to force an early ultimatum. Presidential elections in the spring of 2027 are at the back of everyone’s minds and Bayrou likely fancies a tilt himself, believing he will be proven right about the failure to grasp the debt nettle between now and then.
What happens after Bayrou resigns?
Macron holds the cards and can tap someone else on the shoulder, asking them to give forming a government a go.
Whoever is chosen would face the same problem of trying to govern in a parliament where no political bloc commands a majority.
Another option would be for the president to call fresh parliamentary elections. It was Macron’s decision to call a snap parliamentary election last year that left France in its current state of political paralysis.
The third and most dramatic option would be for Macron himself to resign, triggering an early presidential election to break the deadlock currently gripping French politics. That is unlikely to happen.
Would a new prime minister fare any better?
A new resident of the Matignon, the office of the prime minister, would face the same political conundrum that recent predecessors failed to find an answer to.
On the far right there is Le Pen’s surging National Rally, which gained seats last year and continues to poll as the most popular party in France.
Macron’s centrist Renaissance camp lost a chunk of its support and would be fighting for its survival if fresh elections were called.
After coming together in an electoral pact last year to keep the far right from power, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical France Unbowed party and the more moderate Socialist Party have gone their separate ways, as many expected them to do.
The trick might be picking a prime minister who could earn the support of the Socialists, without being so left-leaning that they cause the Republicans to withdraw their backing.
With Bayrou set to follow Barnier out the door, France will again be left without a government or a budget, and Macron running short of options for what to do about that.
