Paris:
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou faces his first vote of no confidence in parliament on Thursday, with the motion unlikely to be passed.
The challenge in the National Assembly comes after Bayrou's statement this week on his policy agenda for the government, in which he opened the door to new talks on a pension reform in 2023 “without taboo” but also said France's “excessive” deficits had to be reduced. this year's budget.
The speech drew condemnation from most of the opposition in parliament, where Bayrou is well short of an absolute majority, leaving his government highly vulnerable to a vote of no confidence that, if successful, would force it to resign.
Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), dismissed it as “idle talk” from “a man with spineless continuity”.
But the motion of no confidence, submitted by the far-left LFI party, will nevertheless not receive the support of the RN, party members say.
“We don't think that a vote of no confidence should be a gadget to cause a fuss,” said RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy, while RN vice-president Sebastien Chenu said his party would assess the government “ not by her words, but by his actions.”
However, Tanguy warned that the RN could still come after Bayrou over his 2025 budget, which was overdue after the previous government of Michel Barnier was toppled over its austerity plans. The budget announcement by the new government would be a “moment of truth,” Tanguy said.
Lacking far-right support, the no-confidence motion cannot gain the 288 votes needed to topple Bayrou, even if the moderate-left Socialists join the LFI's initiative, which was still uncertain hours before the vote.
The motion will be debated from 3pm (2pm GMT), with a vote expected early this evening.
French politics were thrown into chaos last year when President Emmanuel Macron called elections to break the political deadlock, but the vote left a hopelessly divided lower house.
Macron has acknowledged that his decision to dissolve the National Assembly has led to “divisiveness” and “instability”.
Constitutional rules ensure that new parliamentary elections cannot be called until July.
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