France was plunged into another political crisis on Wednesday evening when the government of Michel Barnier lost a vote of no confidence. 332 MPs voted for the motion and 288 against, an inevitable result once Marine Le Pen’s National Rally let it be known that they would support the left-wing New Front Popular in their censure.
It is only the second time in the 66-year history of the Fifth Republic that a government has lost of vote of no confidence; that previous occasion was in 1962 when Georges Pompidou’s premiership was terminated in similar fashion.
It is not the opposition who have plunged France into chaos
Throughout a tense afternoon the leaders of the political parties had addressed parliament outlining their reasons for voting for or against. The last to address the 577 MPs was Barnier, shortly after 7pm. ‘It’s difficult here, eh?’ he said, a flicker of a smile on his weary face as he stood before the Assembly.
His premiership lasted 90 days, the shortest in the history of the Republic.
When he took on the job in September he promised ‘rupture and changes’, but in truth he brought neither. Le Pen decided to bring down his government because, in her words, Barnier was simply continuing Macron’s ruinous policies.
The president arrived back in Paris on Wednesday evening after a brief visit to Saudi Arabia. Now he must find a new prime minister – the fourth this year after Elisabeth Borne, Gabriel Attal and Barnier.
Macron reportedly wants to have one in place within 24 hours, conscious that he welcomes the world to Paris on Saturday for the re-opening of Notre-Dame, five years after the cathedral was ravaged by fire. President-elect Donald Trump is among the dignitaries and it would be embarrassing for Macron to host the President-elect without a Prime Minister by his side.
Among the frontrunners are Francois Bayrou, the veteran centrist, Sebastien Lecornu, a Macron loyalist and the current Armed forces minister, and also Bruno Retailleau, the Interior Minister, whose views on mass immigration and insecurity differ little from Le Pen’s.
Melenchon’s left-wing coalition are demanding that Macron appoints their candidate, the Progressive technocrat Lucie Castets; she was rejected by the president in the summer.
Melenchon was one of the first to react to the vote, posting on social media that ‘even with a Barnier every three months, Macron won’t last three years’.
It does seem increasingly hard to see how Macron can remain in office until May 2027 when it is he responsible for the mayhem engulfing the country.
Not long after he called the snap election in June – after his party had been hammered by the National Rally in the European elections – Macron wrote a letter to the French people, which was published in several newspapers. He explained why he had dissolved parliament. ‘This decision is the only one that can enable our country to move forward and come together’, he wrote. ‘The way our Assembly operates and the disorder of recent months could not continue. The oppositions were preparing to overthrow the government in the autumn, which would have plunged our country into crisis just as the budget was being drawn up’.
That has now happened but it is not the opposition who have plunged France into chaos. It is Macron.