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The French parliament on Wednesday voted to oust prime minister Michel Barnier over his proposed deficit-cutting budget, plunging the country into deeper political turmoil.
A motion of no confidence was approved by 331 votes in the 577 member national assembly, as Marine Le Pen’s far right party teamed up with a leftist bloc to bring down Barnier’s minority government.
Barnier’s administration has collapsed without adopting his contentious 2025 budget that included €60bn in tax hikes and spending cuts to reduce France’s deficit, which will reach 6 per cent of GDP this year.
President Emmanuel Macron will now have to select another prime minister, a task made difficult by a raucous parliament divided into three blocs, none of which is close to having a governing majority.
Barnier told parliament on Wednesday, before the no confidence vote: “I have been and am proud to act to build rather than to destroy.”
He said it was “not for pleasure” that he had presented a difficult budget. France’s fiscal “reality will not disappear by the enchantment of a motion of censure”, he added.
Macron will have to contend with an emboldened Le Pen and her Rassemblement National party, which was decisive in ousting Barnier after spurning his last ditch attempts at a compromise on his budget.
Le Pen said her decision to censure Barnier was prompted by the “necessity to put an end to the chaos, to spare the French people from a dangerous, unfair, and punitive budget”.
Barnier’s three-month term as prime minister was the shortest of any premier since France’s Fifth Republic was founded in 1958. It is only the second time a government has been voted down since then.
The centre-right politician was appointed by Macron in September after the president’s centrist alliance lost snap parliamentary elections, which increased the ranks of the far right and leftist parties.
Barnier’s departure is a sign of just how gridlocked French institutions have become since the elections.
“It feels like a series of impasses in a parliament where no one has a workable majority,” said Bruno Cautrès, political scientist at Sciences Po. “There is a risk that a new government would fall quickly, just as Barnier has done.”
Barnier had previously warned of a financial and economic “storm” should his government collapse without adopting the 2025 budget. French borrowing costs on its 10 year sovereign bond hit a 12-year high against Germany’s last week.
Barnier has said borrowing costs are on track to exceed €60bn next year, more than the defence budget.
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