France’s prime minister has announced that he will seek a vote of confidence in parliament on the issue of the 2026 Budget – the vote scheduled two days before the date of a called ‘blockade’ of France in protest at his cost-cutting plans.
Speaking in a press conference on Monday afternoon, Prime Minister François Bayrou said: “I have asked the president to convene an extraordinary session of parliament on September 8th, during which I will lay out the programme for government and call a confidence vote.”
Bayrou’s plans for a €44 billion cost-cutting Budget – which he insists is necessary to tackle France’s spiralling budget deficit – have already caused a massive backlash.
Some unions have called for strikes, while some of the opposition parties have called upon people to support the September 10th ‘bloquons tout’ (block everything) movement.
READ ALSO: What do we know about the call to ‘blockade France’ on September 10th?
Bayrou’s minority government is also threatened with a no-confidence vote in parliament, which, if it achieves a majority, would bring down his government in exactly the same manner as his predecessor Michel Barnier.
Seeking to preempt this possibility, he has decided to take the unusual step of calling a vote of confidence in himself, before the Budget debates begin.
“If you have a majority, the government is confirmed. If you do not have a majority, the government falls,” Bayrou said.
He told journalists on Monday that this move is intended to push parliament into an “adult debate” on France’s financial situation and the increasing problem of the spiralling Budget deficit.
He said that the vote was necessary to “confirm the scale of the effort required” to tackle the public debt, before detailed debates begin in parliament on the Budget itself.
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He also spoke directly to the French people, telling them “everyone must take responsibility” for the financial situation of the country, and calling on France to become a country that “produces more and takes less”.
After citing the example of the UK and its former Prime Minister Liz Truss – who in 2022 crashed the pound with an un-costed Budget and was forced to resign after just 49 days in office – Bayrou said that: “France is heading for disaster if it does not take courageous decisions”.
He added that France’s “dependence on debt has become chronic” – debt repayments already account for the second largest category of government expenditure and according to Bayrou: “The debt burden will become the nation’s largest budget item this year – this year is €66 billion, €75 billion next year and €107 billion in 2029.”
Bayrou has so far only laid out the broad brush strokes of the Budget to save €44 billion, one of the few concrete proposals he has made – to axe two of France’s 11 national public holidays – is opposed by 84 percent of French people, according to polling.
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Within minutes of the end of his speech, the hard-left La France Insoumise announced that they will vote against the confidence motion in an attempt to topple the government.
Far-right leader Jordan Bardella said in a social media post, “Francois Bayrou has just announced the end of his government, undermined by its complacent inaction.
“The Rassemblement National (RN) party will never vote in favour of a government whose choices cause suffering to the French people. Our fellow citizens are waiting for a change and a return to the ballot box: we are ready.”
The composition of the parliament is such that both the leftist block – of which LFI is the largest party – and the far-right must join together in a vote if it is to succeed in bringing down the government.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
