The government of François Bayrou, a centrist Prime Minister who has been in office for just nine months, collapsed on Monday in the latest sign of a France reduced to chronic political instability and incapacity to confront its growing financial crisis.

The National Assembly, or lower house of Parliament, voted overwhelmingly against Bayrou in a confidence motion he had called with the aim of setting out the gravity of France’s ballooning debt and budget deficit, and the need to confront them by finding annual savings of at least $51 billion.

The vote was 364 against Bayrou’s government and 194 in favour in the 577-member lower house, a crushing defeat for the Prime Minister. Abstentions and absences accounted for the remaining lawmakers.

This was a demise foretold. Fatalistic in the face of a parliamentary impasse, Bayrou had, even before the debate began, invited his entourage to a “convivial moment”, or farewell soirée, this evening. With four Prime Ministers in the past 20 months, and a fifth likely to be appointed now, the fall of French governments, once unusual, has become close to mundane.

Certainly, the fall of Bayrou thrust France into a political void bereft of plausible answers. It placed renewed pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, who has become an isolated figure even as he attempts to play a central international rule in ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. This effort has taken up much of his time.

Macron, who is term limited and obliged to give up the presidency in about 18 months, is not a lame duck but he is far from the irresistible young change agent of his first election in 2017. He has been less forthright than his outgoing Prime Minister on the gathering economic storm and must now either pick a new Prime Minister
or call parliamentary elections.

New York Times News Service