No-confidence vote draws France into new political crisis

Le Pen ‘will plunge France into the great political and financial unknown’

PARIS: France headed into a new political crisis Tuesday as opposition lawmakers threatened to topple the minority government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a no-confidence vote after just three months in office.

A standoff over an austerity budget, which has caused jitters on financial markets, follows permanent tension since the 73-year-old was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in September.

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The far-left France Unbowed (LFI) opposition party said it would bring a no-confidence motion after Barnier, under pressure to implement cost-cutting measures, used executive powers Monday to force through social security legislation without a vote.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN), which has demanded changes in the 2025 budget, said it would back the move.

French legislators were expected to vote on the motion Wednesday, with first results expected around 1900 GMT.

Two no-confidence motions will be put forward. One by the far right is unlikely to pass, but one proposed by the hard-left should go through with backing from RN lawmakers.

“Blocking this budget is, alas, the only way the constitution gives us to protect the French people from a dangerous, unfair and punitive budget,” Le Pen said on X.

‘Great unknown’

Macron, currently on a visit to Saudi Arabia, has appeared to be mostly a spectator in the crisis he unleashed by ordering snap elections, prompting some voices to question if he should consider resigning.

Le Pen “will plunge France into the great political and financial unknown”, Le Figaro newspaper said.

The turbulence has intensified months of political instability in the key EU member following the inconclusive elections called by Macron in a bid to halt the rise of the far right.

Barnier has been under pressure to cut 60 billion euros ($64 billion) off government spending in 2025 in the hope of cutting the public-sector deficit to five percent of gross domestic product, from 6.1 percent of GDP this year.

He has made a number of concessions to the opposition including scrapping plans for a less generous prescription drug reimbursement policy from next year. But opposition deputies still oppose his plan.

Economists at ING said the likelihood of quickly finding a replacement for Barnier was “highly uncertain.”

“With an extremely polarised National Assembly divided into three major camps ... the risk of a new vote of no confidence for any new government is very high.”

Finance Minister Antoine Armand told France 2 television that lawmakers would be “damaging” the country by ousting Barnier’s government.

“Who will bear the consequences? First and foremost, the French.”

‘Useless leaders’

In a poll published on Monday, 52 per cent of French people said they favoured Macron resigning, but were above all concerned about their purchasing power.

“I’m very worried and very upset with the forces on the left and the forces on the far right,” Bertrand Chenu, a 65-year-old retiree, told AFP in Paris.

Another Parisian, Janine Revel, also blamed politicians.”All the party leaders are useless,” she said. “They only think of themselves.”

If the government falls, it would be the first successful no-confidence vote since a defeat for Georges Pompidou’s government in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president.

The lifespan of Barnier’s government would also be the shortest of any administration of France’s Fifth Republic which began in 1958.

Some obervers have suggested that Le Pen, 56, is seeking to bring down Macron before his term ends by ousting Barnier.

Le Pen has been embroiled in a high-profile embezzlement trial. If found guilty in March, she could be blocked from participating in France’s next presidential election, scheduled for 2027.

If Macron stepped down soon, an election would have to be called within a month, potentially ahead of the verdict in her trial.

“She could hope, if she won, to be in the Elysee Palace by early February,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group.

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier delivers a speech during the voting session on the draft of the Social Security bill 2025 at the National Assembly, the French Parliament's lower house, in Paris on December 2, 2024. French Prime Minister faces the biggest risk yet of being deposed by a hostile National Assembly as his government on December 2, 2024, presents a social security financing plan that has the opposition up in arms. These include planned cuts in employer social contributions, a partial end to inflation-indexing of pensions and a less generous prescription drug reimbursement policy. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP) Image Credit: AFP
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