France’s centrist Prime Minister Francois Bayrou tabled a vote of confidence in his government he seemed certain to lose in an effort to force through an austerity budget for 2026 to bring the countey’s structural deficit under control. File Photo by Eco Clement/UPI | License Photo
French opposition parties across the political spectrum vowed Tuesday they would vote to bring down Prime Minister Francois Bayrou’s minority government in a confidence vote he called in a last-ditch effort to push through a 2026 budget containing $51.3 billion of spending cuts.
With just 214 seats in the National Assembly and the right-leaning National Rally joining the Socialists, Greens and La France Insoumise “France Unbowed” on the left to warn they will not support him in the Sept. 8 vote, Bayrou’s coalition faces collapse just nine months after the same fate befell his predecessor, Michel Barnier.
Bayrou said the move, which came as the country was braced for national “block everything” protests against the cuts on Wednesday, organized via an online campaign, was necessary due to the danger posed by France’s ballooning budget deficit, which topped 5.8% of GDP in 2024.
European Union rules contained in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty mandate that countries that use the euro keep budget deficits to a maximum 3% of GDP.
Bayrou said he was asking parliament “to choose the path that allows us to escape from this curse” and that the vote would force deputies to take examine the situation and decide where they stood for everyone to see.
“We face an immediate danger, which we must tackle otherwise, we have no future. There are moments when only a calculated risk can allow you to escape a more serious risk. It is a matter of the survival of our state, the image of our nation, and each and every family,” said Bayrou.
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen called for parliament to be dissolved so that the question could be decided by the French people through an election, while Greens leader Marine Tondelier said Bayrou had effectively resigned with his announcement.
Socialist leader Olivier Faure said he could not conceive of any scenario where his party would back Bayrou — but stopped short of calling for elections.
“We’re not looking for chaos with the aim of speeding up the electoral calendar. It is Francois Bayrou who is to blame for political instability by proposing a budget that no one supports, not even his electorate,” said Faure.
However, President Emmanuel Macron, who created the hung parliament in the first place by dissolving parliament in June 2024 to call a snap election after a drubbing at the hands of the far-right in European Parliament elections, was not likely to be disposed to doing it again.
Analysts said he would probably try to appoint a new prime minister — the fourth in 20 months — although it was less clear who would take the job and whether they would be any better placed to govern with any measure of success.
Wednesday’s protests, backed by the leftist France Unbowed are reviving the specter of the 2018-2020 so-called “yellow vests” movement against fuel prices, taxes and economic inequality that rocked the country, posing an existential threat to Macron in his first term.
