French government toppled in historic no-confidence vote

Three months after he was appointed prime minister by French President Emmanuel Macron, Michel Barnier and his government were toppled on Wednesday, December 4, after a majority of PMs voted a no-confidence motion.

The Assemblée Nationale debated two motions of no confidence, one presented by the radical left and the other by the far right, in a standoff over next year’s austerity budget, after the prime minister on Monday forced a social security financing bill through without a vote.

With the support of the far-right, a majority of 331 MPs in the 577-member chamber voted to oust the government. A minimum of 288 were needed. Speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet confirmed Barnier would now have to “submit his resignation” to Macron and declared the session closed. This was the first successful no-confidence vote to oust a French prime minister since 1962.

Later on Wednesday, the presidency said Barnier will on Thursday submit the resignation of his government to Macron. Barnier is expected at the Elysee Palace at 0900 GMT for the formality which is a constitutional obligation following a vote of no confidence.

“The worst policy would be not to block such a budget,” three-time far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said during the parliamentary debate, urging lawmakers to vote out the government and its “technocratic” choices.

On Tuesday, Macron had accused Le Pen’s far right of “unbearable cynicism” for planning to back the left’s motion.

Eric Coquerel, a radical-left MP, said the motion sounded the “death knell of Emmanuel Macron’s mandate.” The French president was “today an obstacle, and in no way a solution. Today we are voting to censure your government, but more than anything else, we are sounding the death knell for a mandate: that of the president,” he added.

Laurent Wauquiez, the head of conservative MPs in the Assemblée, said the far right and hard left bore the responsibility for a no-confidence vote that will “plunge the country into instability.”

‘Macron should go’

“We are now calling on Macron to go,” Mathilde Panot, the head of the parliamentary faction of the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party told reporters, urging “early presidential elections” to solve a deepening political crisis.

Barnier’s rapid ejection from office comes after snap parliamentary elections this summer that resulted in a hung Parliament with no party having an overall majority and the far right holding the key to the government’s survival. The ousting of the Barnier government presents Macron with the task of picking a viable successor with over two years of his presidential term left.

The president, who flew back to Paris just ahead of the vote after wrapping up his three-day state visit to Saudi Arabia, will address the nation on Thursday evening, the Elysée said.

Macron on Tuesday had rejected calls to resign, saying such a scenario amounted to “political fiction.”

With markets nervous and France bracing for public-sector strikes against the threat of cutbacks, action that will shut schools and hit air and rail traffic, there is a growing sense of crisis.

The unions have called for civil servants, including teachers and air traffic controllers, to strike on Thursday over separate cost-cutting measures proposed by their respective ministries this autumn.

Meanwhile, Macron is due to host a major international event Saturday, with the reopening of the Notre-Dame cathedral after the 2019 fire, with guests including Donald Trump on his first foreign trip since he was elected to be the next US president.