French government led by right-wing Prime Minister Michel Barnier is on the brink of collapse after opposition parties announced a push for a vote of no confidence over a social security budget dispute.
Barnier’s decision to force through budget measures without a vote has infuriated both France’s left and the far-right parties.
Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator was personally appointed by President Emmanuel Macron as the prime minister in September after a snap election in July resulted in a hung parliament. The 73-year-old leader has been heading a minority government.
French lawmakers will put forward two no-confidence motions on Wednesday. A no-confidence vote would throw France into political chaos for the second time this year.
What led to the no-confidence vote proposal?
In recent days, French parliamentarians from the country’s far-right National Rally (RN) and left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP) have been pressuring Barnier to make concessions to his administration’s social security budget for 2025.
Barnier’s budget bill includes tax hikes worth $62.8bn, which he said would raise money for the country, and government spending cuts worth about 40 billion euros ($42bn) to cut the country’s deficit.
France has a public deficit hitting approximately 6.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and Barnier has been eager to bring the deficit down in line with European Union rules, which require countries to have a budget deficit ratio of 3 percent.
On Monday, the embattled prime minister used Article 49.3 of the French constitution to pass his social security budget bill for 2025 through the parliament without a vote.
Speaking to France’s BFM TV on Monday, Mathilde Panot, of the left-wing France Unbowed (La France Insoumise, LFI) parliamentary group said: “With [Article] 49.3, this is one blow too many from an illegitimate government. We are tabling a motion of censure. Barnier’s fall is a done deal. Macron will be next.”
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), said on X that backing the no-confidence vote is the only constitutional way to protect French people from a “dangerous, unjust and punitive budget which, moreover, worsens the already monstrous deficits of seven years of Macronism.”
Barnier has defended his budget and said: “The French will not forgive us for putting the interests of individuals before the future of the country.”
“Ever since Barnier took the prime minister’s office, it was clear that he was dependent on support from forces in the French political system especially, the radical right led by Le Pen,” Jacob Ross, an expert on French politics and Franco-German relations at the German Council of foreign relations, told Al Jazeera.
“But she and her party have never been interested in Barnier and Macron’s long-term survival.
“Moreover, with the ongoing lawsuit against Le Pen, she sees herself cornered by the judiciary system in France which could also make it hard for her to run for the next presidential election. So her party’s decision against Barnier is a motion to help her win people‘s votes, but a very risky one, since her party could be seen as the one which has opened the gates to chaos [and thus lose the more moderate part of her electorate],” he added.
Will the current government fall?
“Motion de censure”, or no-confidence, is nothing new in France. The country’s administration under President Charles de Gaulle, which had been elected to power in 1958, was forced to resign in 1962 after facing a no-confidence vote over resolving the crisis in Algeria.
In March 2023, President Macron’s government also narrowly survived a no-confidence vote over his pension reform, which had resulted in violent protests across the country.
Ross is confident that Barnier’s government will be voted out on Wednesday.
“If Barnier doesn’t fall, then the political chaos in France is only postponed.”
President Macron is currently in Saudi Arabia, seeking to boost ties with the Middle Eastern country. Despite tomorrow’s vote, his presidential mandate will continue till 2027. But if Barnier’s government falls, Macron will hold talks to appoint a new prime minister.
Gesine Weber, a research fellow at the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, pointed out that the no-confidence motion could result in a big political deadlock.
“We are going back to playing the same game again as in summer [of 2024], where Macron finds himself with a very fractured parliament where you have left bloc, a centrist bloc and a far-right bloc,” she told Al Jazeera.
“The political deadlock is big because, basically, if Barnier is voted out, I’m not sure whether Macron could nominate someone from his political family again. The only option would be to nominate someone from the political left.
She noted that the left wing also does not have an absolute majority and building a coalition would be complicated.
“Another option would be to name a caretaker government … But that’s not a sustainable solution.”
How do people in France feel?
French politics this year is “la chienlit“, or disorderly, for Barbara Darbois*, who lives in Avignon, in southeastern France.
“The feeling is also mixed. Some people are angry about French politics, while others are satisfied,” the 52-year-old who works at a Telecommunications company, told Al Jazeera.
“We also are not used to compromise like other European countries,” she said, commenting on the political chaos.
Stuart Bottomley, an English upholsterer living near Bordeaux told Al Jazeera, “It’s probably for the best, an austerity budget would be a disaster. France will have to decide its future – which way it wants to go. It’s time to stop placating the putrid poison of Le Pen’s fascistic RN. It’ll be like lancing a boil.”
What does this mean for Europe?
France’s second political turmoil of the year comes after the neighbouring German government collapsed last month. The political crisis in the eurozone’s biggest economies comes a month after Donald Trump was elected the US president. Trump is set to visit the French capital over the weekend for the Notre Dame cathedral reopening.
Ross acknowledged that the big European states like France and Germany are in a very fragile state and highlighted that they are definitely not well prepared for what’s coming, referring to Trump.
“I think currently, there is a European leadership void to face Trump’s America and also come up with solutions to stop the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza on the international stage. But smaller EU member states like Poland, for instance, are really trying to fill that leadership void,” he said.
Weber feels that the political chaos in France, in particular, is not ideal for future Europe.
“The domestic instability will require a lot of political bandwidth from Macron. The country is in this weird in-between period where on one hand, the government is extremely unstable and on the other hand it is paralysed because you cannot do anything. This requires a lot of presidential attention, making it challenging for Macron to focus on European issues,” she said.
“At the moment, what France needs is leadership to cure,” she added.
*Some names have been changed to protect the individual’s privacy.