After less than four months in power, French Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government has lost a no-confidence vote in parliament over a social security budget dispute.
On Wednesday evening, 331 French legislators from left- and right-wing parties, out of a total of 577 legislators, voted in favour of removing the EU’s former Brexit negotiator and his administration in France’s lower house of parliament.
Barnier, 73, was due to officially present his resignation to French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday morning. The last time a prime minister resigned following a no-confidence motion was in 1962 when PM Michel Debre, who served under Charles de Gaulle, the founding father of the Fifth Republic and the president of France, resigned over the Algerian crisis.
Barnier’s resignation not only throws Paris into political chaos for the second time this year but also leaves the country without a budget for 2025.
A statement from the Elysee Palace said President Macron would address the nation about what happens next on Thursday evening.
French parliamentarians from the country’s left-wing alliance, New Popular Front (NFP), tabled the vote in opposition to Barnier’s recent austerity budget. This was later supported by the far-right National Rally (RN), when Barnier tried to push the budget through parliament without a vote.
His budget bill included tax hikes worth 60 billion euros ($63.2bn) and government spending cuts to social security and welfare worth about 40 billion euros ($42.1bn) designed to address the country’s deficit.
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