France vote of no confidence: French lawmakers vote to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier, plunging country into chaos

Paris
CNN
—

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier has been forced to resign just three months into his term after left- and right-wing lawmakers united to back a vote of no confidence, plunging the country into deeper political instability.

A total of 331 out of 577 lawmakers voted against Barnier’s fragile government, seizing their opportunity to topple the veteran politician – and renowned negotiator – after he tried to ram through part of his government’s annual budget on Monday.

His is the first French government to be defeated in a vote of no confidence since 1962, and Barnier is now set to become France’s shortest-serving prime minister in history.

Barnier’s cabinet is now expected to act as caretaker until French President Emmanuel Macron appoints new leadership.

But it will prove a delicate task, with the increasingly vulnerable president forced to appease lawmakers at both extremes of French politics.

Macron had appointed Barnier to lead a minority government after a snap election called by the president this summer split France’s parliament into three factions, each lacking a majority.

The situation had initially appeared untenable and collapsed at the first major hurdle on Monday, when Barnier was forced to use a constitutional mechanism that bypassed a vote in the legislature on his 2025 budget.

That allowed rival lawmakers on the left, who had long vowed to bring him down, to call a no-confidence motion in response, and the far-right National Rally backed the motion to see it through on Wednesday. The far right had also called for a similar proposal.

Barnier argued his case during Wednesday’s debate in the National Assembly, telling lawmakers he was “not afraid” but warned that removing him would make “everything more difficult.”

But he was forced to watch as a legislator after the legislature called for his impeachment.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally, said during the debate that Barnier’s “stubborn adherence to dogma and doctrine prevented him from making the slightest concession that would have avoided this result.”

The day before the vote, Barnier accused the far right of political blackmail, saying they had accepted his concessions on electricity tax increases and medical care for undocumented people before demanding more.

The far-right leader has been the main antagonist throughout the Macron era, challenging him in two presidential elections and now deploying the prime minister he handpicked to resolve a simmering crisis.

She placed the blame for the fall of Barnier’s government squarely on Macron’s shoulders.

“He is the most responsible for the current situation,” she said after the vote. Macron “will accept his responsibility, he will do what his reason and his conscience dictate to him,” she said in an interview with French broadcaster TF1.

Macron will address the French nation at 8 p.m. Thursday evening, the Elysee Palace announced.

France is now coming to the end of a remarkably volatile year without a prime minister or a budget. Macron must choose a new prime minister, but it is hard to imagine a candidate who would expect support from both the left and the far right.

A budget must also be adopted before a deadline of December 21; if that deadline is missed, the government could still legislate a “fiscal continuity law” that would avoid a shutdown by allowing the government to collect taxes and pay wages, with spending limited to 2024 levels, according to credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings.

Another snap election is not possible because the current parliament must sit until June, a year after the last vote.

Instead, Macron will face intensifying calls for his resignation – a demand that lawmakers such as Le Pen may seek to issue an ultimatum in return for backing a prime ministerial candidate.

Macron is increasingly unpopular after his remarkable gamble after June’s European elections, when he responded to continent-wide gains for the far right by calling early legislative elections in France.

The dismal results of the nationwide poll prompted parties on the left and right to pressure Macron’s center bloc, with all three falling far short of a parliamentary majority.

Macron is halfway through his second and final term as president, but the results of the snap election have seriously complicated the final stages of his time in power and diminished his authority at home and abroad.

Barnier’s funding bill, which triggered his downfall, includes tax increases of €60 billion ($63 billion) and spending cuts aimed at bringing the country’s budget deficit down to 5% next year, according to government calculations. Some of the measures are hugely unpopular with opposition parties, such as delaying inflation-matching pension increases.

“Finally, the Barnier government has fallen, as did his violent budget, as we knew it would, for a very simple reason: it was a provocation of French voters,” said Mathilde Panot, president of the LFI-NFP left wing. wing bloc that had put forward the proposal immediately after the vote.

On Monday, worries about the impact of the political maelstrom on France’s public finances briefly pushed the government’s borrowing costs above Greece’s.

France’s public debt is approaching 111% of gross domestic product (GDP) – a level not surpassed since World War II, according to S&P Global Ratings – partly as the state spent heavily to cushion the economy from the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Lauren Kent and Hanna Ziady contributed reporting.