French PM François Bayrou Toppled By Legislators in Confidence Vote

Paris: Legislators toppled France’s government in a confidence vote on Monday, a new crisis for Europe’s second-largest economy that obliges President Emmanuel Macron to search for a fourth prime minister in 12 months.

Prime Minister François Bayrou was ousted overwhelmingly in a 364-194 vote against him. Bayrou paid the price for what appeared to be a staggering political miscalculation, gambling that lawmakers would back his view that France must slash public spending to repair its debts. Instead, they seized on the vote that he called to gang up against Bayrou — a 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Macron last December.

The demise of Bayrou’s short-lived minority government — now constitutionally obliged to submit its resignation to Macron after just under nine months in office — heralds renewed uncertainty and a risk of prolonged legislative deadlock for France as it wrestles with pressing challenges, including budget difficulties and, internationally, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the shifting priorities of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Earlier, Bayrou had warned that France is risking its future and its influence by racking up trillions in state debts that are “submerging us,” pleading for belt-tightening in a last-ditch effort to save his job from a parliamentary vote expected to oust him later Monday.

Bayrou, 74, painted a dramatic picture of the European Union’s No. 2 economy becoming beholden to foreign creditors and addicted to living beyond its means. He castigated opponents in the National Assembly who were preparing to topple his minority government, ganging up against him despite their own sharp political differences.

“You have the power to overthrow the government, but you do not have the power to erase reality,” Bayrou said in a speech to the National Assembly before the confidence vote that he called. “Reality will remain inexorable. Spending will continue to increase and and the debt burden — already unbearable — will grow heavier and more costly.”

At the end of the first quarter of 2025, France’s public debt stood at 3.346 trillion euros, or 114% of gross domestic product. Debt servicing remains a major budget item, accounting for around 7% of state spending.

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