France has plunged into political and financial uncertainty again after Prime Minister François Bayrou's gamble to seek a vote of confidence in parliament on September 8, AFP reported.
Eight months after taking office, Bayrou's government is in danger of falling from power for the same reason as his predecessor Michel Barnier's - an inability to pass a law on the country's budget. Both opposition parties and public opinion are against the savings plan worth nearly 44 billion euros, and demonstrations with roadblocks across the country are scheduled for September 10. That is why the prime minister decided to play the fool today, the agency said.
At his request, President Emmanuel Macron will convene an extraordinary parliamentary session on September 8 to hold a vote of confidence. He hopes that this vote will validate the need for such a plan to reduce the budget deficit. The reactions of the opposition forces came instantly and seem to leave no chance of success for the cabinet, which has not had a majority since its formation in December. From the far-right party "National Rally" to the far-left "France Insubordinate", passing through the environmentalists and the communists, everyone has promised to vote against.
"Yes, it is risky, but it is even riskier to do nothing", Bayrou said yesterday at a press conference, considering the accumulating debt.
"François Bayrou has chosen to leave. With the current majority, he knows that he cannot get a vote of confidence from the opposition. This is self-dissolution," Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure wrote in an article for Le Monde.
The leader of the far-left France Indépendant party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, went even further, saying that President Emmanuel Macron himself should resign. "Emmanuel Macron must go. He is responsible for the crisis," Mélenchon wrote in Ex.
"We will, of course, vote "against" François Bayrou's government in the vote of confidence. Only the dissolution of parliament will allow the French people to determine their fate, which would mean a restoration with a "National Assembly", said the party leader Marine Le Pen.
According to the director of the sociological research institute "Ipsos" Mathieu Gallard said Bayrou's decision "looks like hara-kiri." "He tried to shock the population and the French political system to make people realize the seriousness of the country's debt crisis, but he may have just set the date for his own execution," Mujtaba Rahman, director of the Eurasia Group, a research firm, told AFP. French public debt is almost 114 percent of GDP, making France third in the eurozone after Greece and Italy. The budget deficit is 5.8 percent of GDP, well above the official 3 percent threshold set by the EU. This political instability, unseen since the Fifth Republic, which was established in 1958 to end the constant change of government, was unleashed by the dissolution of parliament in June 2024 by Emmanuel Macron after his camp's defeat in the European elections.
But the subsequent National Assembly elections resulted in a parliament divided into three blocs (the Left Alliance, the Macronists and the Right and the Far Right). None of them has an absolute majority. The Far Right and the Left have a combined total of over 320 seats, while the Centrists and their allied Conservatives have 210, making it impossible for the government to survive if the opposition votes unanimously.
This instability could lead to financial turmoil. The Paris Stock Exchange and the shares of banks that hold large amounts of French debt fell sharply this morning. The main CAC40 index fell about 2 percent in early trading today, the AP noted.
If the government falls, Macron could immediately appoint a new prime minister, ask Bayrou to remain at the helm of a caretaker government or call early elections.
The president lost his last prime minister, Michel Barnier, in a vote of no confidence over the budget at the end of 2024. The cabinet remained in power for only three months after the snap election in July of that year.
Even if the government wins the vote of confidence, it will only mean support for its views on France's fiscal problems, and a vote on the actual budget will be organized later in the year, Reuters noted.
Among the prime minister's proposals are the abolition of two of the country's official holidays, freezing social spending and tax thresholds in 2026 at 2025 levels, without adjusting for inflation.
The call for general protests on September 10 drew comparisons to the so-called yellow vest demonstrations that erupted in 2018 over rising fuel prices and the high cost of living. The "yellow vest" protests have grown into a broader movement against President Emmanuel Macron and his economic reform efforts.