As expected, the government of François Bayrou has lost its vote of confidence in the National Assembly.
Three hundred and sixty-four MPs voted to bring down the centrist coalition government, ten months after Michel Barnier’s administration collapsed in similar circumstances. On that occasion 331 MPs cast their ballots against the Prime Minister.
Bayrou has been a marked man since he unveiled his budget proposals in July, the objective of which was to slash €44 billion (£38 billion) in spending by 2026 in order to reduce France’s huge public debt. MPs from across the political spectrum condemned his budget.
During an afternoon of impassioned debate in parliament, Bayrou had warned MPs: ‘You can get rid of the government, but you can’t get rid of reality.’ That reality is 3.35 trillion euros of debt, predicted to reach 116 per cent of economic output this year. Since 2020 interest payments have leapt from 26 billion euros to 66 billion euros.
‘France has not known a balanced budget for 51 years,’ declared Bayrou. ‘Every year, debt accumulates.’ France’s public debt is currently at 114 per cent of GDP, and on Friday its credit rating could be downgraded when the Fitch credit rating agency reviews its AA- rating.
The problem for Bayrou in ramming home his message is that he has been involved in French political life for most of that time. To many he is emblematic of the weak, lazy and cowardly political class who have mismanaged France for half a century.
To many he is emblematic of the weak, lazy and cowardly political class who have mismanaged France for half a century.
Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of the National Rally, welcomed the ‘end of the agony of a phantom government. A government that was a government in name only’. She reiterated her call for Emmanuel Macron to dissolve parliament and hold fresh elections.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI), responded swiftly to the vote, tweeting that ‘Bayrou has fallen…Macron is now on the front line facing the people. He too must go.’
Mathilde Panot, the head of LFI in parliament, said her party will table a motion of no confidence in Macron tomorrow.
France must now wait to see how Macron responds to this latest crisis. A brief statement was issued from the Élysée Palace following the result of the vote, in which the president ‘acknowledged’ Bayrou’s defeat and said a successor would be appointed ‘in the coming days’.
Assuming Macron sticks to his pledge not to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections, he must find a Prime Minister capable of leading a coalition government. Most commentators in France believe it an impossible task, even if he looked outside politics for a technocrat. This was the path chosen by Italy in February 2021 when Mario Draghi was asked to form a technocratic government. Ultimately it led to the victory of Giorgia Meloni in the election 18 months later.
While Macron weighs up his options, France is now turning its attention to the ‘Block Everything’ protest movement that takes to the streets across the country on Wednesday.
Intelligence sources warn that upwards of 100,000 demonstrators are primed to launch a series of ‘protests, blockades and even sabotage’ across the country. It is believed that elements of the extreme left will be involved in the demonstrations and Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister, has instructed the police and gendarmes to show zero tolerance towards violent protestors, with the ‘systematic’ arrest of perpetrators.
Should Wednesday descend into violent disorder Macron may try to make political capital out of the trouble by portraying himself as the only man capable of leading France through this turbulence. ‘It’s me or chaos’, to paraphrase Charles de Gaulle.
With Macron, however, ‘it’s me and chaos’ would be more apt.
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