France’s opposition showed Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his coalition government the door yesterday when 331 far-right and left-wing members of parliament threw their weight behind a motion of no-confidence. The prime minister’s ouster exacerbated a political crisis that culminated in his failure to push through a controversial, deficit-cutting budget by drawing on special constitutional powers that would allow his administration to bypass the need for a final parliamentary vote. Instead, the manoeuvre backfired with Barnier expected to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron imminently.
Hard left and far right came together to denounce Barnier’s effort to bypass a parliamentary vote on the budget, knowing that it lacked majority support. The draft contained measures to save 60 billion euros in a bid to reduce a huge deficit. Before the vote, Barnier warned deputies that the deficit would not vanish “by the magic of a motion of censure”, cautioning them that it would come back to haunt whichever government came next.
Yesterday’s vote marks the first time a French government has lost a confidence vote since Georges Pompidou‘s in 1962. It leaves France possibly facing the end of the year with neither a stable government nor a 2025 budget, although the French constitution does allow for special measures to avoid a government shutdown.
The moves in Paris also sent tremors to a European Union that has had to adjust to the collapse of the coalition in Germany and the prospect of Donald Trump‘s return to the White House next month. “We have arrived at the moment of truth”, Marine Le Pen, the far-right National Rally leader, declared, who insisted that Barnier’s austerity budget proposal spelled chaos for France. Hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party member Mathilde Panot demanded President Macron’s resignation. “With the no-confidence motion, all of the politics of Emmanuel Macron have been defeated and we demand that he goes.”
Investors are showing their dismay at the growing political uncertainty. Earlier this week, France’s borrowing costs briefly exceeded those of Greece.
Reuters reports sources saying that President Macron aims to install a new prime minister perhaps before Saturday’s ceremony to reopen the Notre-Dame Cathedral, which Trump is due to attend. Regardless, any new prime minister would still have to push his or her agenda, including the 2025 budget, through a divided parliament since there can be no new parliamentary election before July. Alternatively, Macron could ask Barnier and his ministers to stay on in a caretaker capacity while he seeks a candidate for the job capable of winning sufficient cross-party support to pass legislation.
The news agency’s sources also note that a caretaker government could continue the tax-and-spend provisions of the 2024 budget into 2025 on an emergency basis, or even invoke special powers provisions to pass the draft 2025 budget by decree. Then again, Macron’s opponents also could vote down every prime minister put forward.
Macron’s rivals maintain that his resignation is the only way to end the political crisis. Meanwhile, the current impasse also poses risks for Le Pen, who for years has tried to persuade voters that her party represents a stable government in waiting. “The French will harshly judge the choice you are going to make”, Laurent Wauquiez, from the Les Republicains party, which backs Macron, told Le Pen in parliament. Le Pen said her party would support any eventual emergency law that rolls over the 2024 budget’s tax-and-spend provisions into next year to ensure there is stopgap financing.
Barnier’s draft budget had sought to cut the fiscal deficit from a projected 6% of national output this year to 5% in 2025. Voting down his government would be catastrophic for state finances, he said.
Le Pen said her party would support any emergency law that rolls over the 2024 budget’s tax-and-spend provisions into next year to ensure stopgap financing.
