PARIS (news agencies) — French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou used special executive powers Monday to get the country’s 2025 budget approved without a vote by lawmakers, and now faces a no-confidence motion that threatens the survival of his 6-week-old government.
Opposition parties were expected to file the no-confidence motion later Monday, and a vote is expected in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
That may provide France with a budget at last, or send the country into new political and economic turmoil. Bayrou’s survival depends on how many parties agree to support the motion. He is France’s fourth prime minister in little over a year.
French politics have been in disarray since President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections last year that left no party with a majority in parliament. With one of the world’s biggest economies, France’s failure to pass a budget has worried investors and hurt the 20-country eurozone.
France is also under pressure from the European Union to reduce its huge debt and deficit.
For Macron, this is a particularly bad time for France to be weakened. U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening new tariffs on the EU and making designs on Greenland, and Russia is growing more emboldened in Ukraine.
After weeks of debate, French lawmakers on Monday debated the conclusions of a joint Parliamentary committee on the state budget.
The previous government collapsed over its budget plans, which included slashing 40 billion euros ($42 billion) in spending and raising taxes by 20 billion euros. Bayrou’s revised version has addressed some concerns from opposition lawmakers.
The joint committee has kept an extra tax on large companies while increasing a tax on financial transactions. And Bayrou agreed not to cut 4,000 jobs in national education as previously envisaged.
But opposition parties said that wasn’t enough. So Bayrou, who has no majority at the National Assembly, used a constitutional tool known as Article 49.3 that allows the government to pass legislation without a parliamentary vote. It is rarely used for a budget.
The hard-left party France Unbowed said it would file a no-confidence motion over Bayrou’s move.
To pass, a no-confidence motion needs at least half the votes in the 577-seat Assembly. France Unbowed’s measure will likely have the support of Communist and Green lawmakers, but that’s not enough.
The vote of the Socialists could be decisive. The Socialist Party said Monday that it would not vote to bring down the Bayrou government because “it’s time to give France a budget.” Yet some lawmakers may not follow the party’s instructions.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen was instrumental in ousting the previous government. Her National Rally party has the largest single group in France’s lower house of parliament, and said it will give its lawmakers instructions Wednesday on how to vote.
If Bayrou is voted out, Macron would face the prospect of finding a new prime minister once again and forming another government capable of finding consensus on the budget.
Something similar happened in December, when a confidence motion triggered by budget disputes forced conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier to resign.
Barnier was named to solve the political impasse created by last year’s elections. But his proposed austerity budget only deepened divisions.
Macron then tapped the veteran centrist Bayrou in the hope he could bridge divides.
Unlike Barnier, Bayrou has held intense negotiations with the Socialists aimed at reaching a non-aggression deal over the budget under which they would agree not to undercut each other.
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