French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has survived another vote of no confidence requested against his government, Reuters and Agence France-Presse reported, NOVA reported.
The request was submitted by the left over the failure of negotiations on pension reform, but it gathered only 189 votes, well below the threshold of 289 needed to bring down the cabinet. The survival of the government of Bayrou, a 74-year-old centrist with extensive political experience, was made possible by the abstention of deputies from the far-right National Rally.
The prime minister does not have a majority in the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, and the vote showed two important things: that the government is in an extremely vulnerable position and that the support of the Socialist Party, on which it has so far relied to stay in power, has already been lost.
"The end of concessions to Bayrou", Socialist leader Olivier Faure said on Sunday. "We have been betrayed."
The Socialists accuse the prime minister of breaking his word that parliament would have the final say on promised amendments to the controversial 2023 pension reform law. This is what Bayrou was able to do to win the Socialists' support for the government. But the consultations failed and the Socialists submitted the request for a vote, DPA notes. The main problem with the reform is related to the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64.
"Bringing down the government today would not be in the interest of the French people," National Assembly leader Marine Le Pen told reporters earlier today.
She added that on the other hand, her party would closely monitor the debates on next year's budget in the fall, and did not rule out bringing down the government, as it did with Bayrou's predecessor Michel Barnier, if there were disagreements between the National Assembly and the cabinet.
Drafting the 2026 budget "will be a nightmare" given the scale of the financial difficulties facing France, government spokeswoman Sophie Primas said in March.
President Emmanuel Macron appointed Bayrou as prime minister in December with the task of stabilizing the country after the chaos caused by the results of last summer's parliamentary elections. If the prime minister is ousted by parliament, it would mean Macron would have to appoint his seventh prime minister and that the remaining two years of his term would be extremely difficult.