France government collapses, Emmanuel Macron on brink
French lawmakers toppled the government in a no-confidence vote on Monday, plunging Europe's second-largest economy into renewed political crisis and forcing President Emmanuel Macron to seek his fourth prime minister in just a year.
Prime Minister François Bayrou was ousted in a lopsided 364–194 vote. The 74-year-old centrist, appointed by Macron last December, had staked his survival on a budget plan requiring deep spending cuts to reduce debt. Expecting lawmakers to rally behind fiscal discipline, Bayrou instead provoked opponents across the spectrum, who seized the vote to unite against him.
By law, Bayrou's minority government must now submit its resignation after less than nine months in office. The collapse fuels uncertainty and raises the risk of prolonged gridlock at a time when France faces daunting fiscal challenges and global instability, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and shifting U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump.
Although Macron had two weeks to prepare—Bayrou announced in August that he would seek a confidence vote—no consensus successor has emerged. The president has already cycled through Gabriel Attal, who left office in September 2024, former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, ousted in December, and now Bayrou. The search for a fourth leader highlights Macron's struggle to build parliamentary support in a chamber dominated by opponents.
Macron still wields significant authority over foreign policy, European affairs, and the military as commander in chief of France's nuclear arsenal. But his domestic ambitions are increasingly stymied. The roots of the crisis trace back to June 2024, when Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called elections, hoping to strengthen his centrist alliance. Instead, the gamble backfired, producing a fragmented legislature with no dominant bloc for the first time in France's modern republic.
Stripped of a reliable majority, Macron's governments have lurched from one showdown to the next. Opposition forces on the left and far right, unable to govern on their own, have repeatedly banded together to bring down his choices. That dynamic has left Macron battling to maintain stability at home even as he projects French influence abroad.
Bayrou also gambled by calling the confidence vote—a move that swiftly backfired as lawmakers on both the left and far right joined forces to topple his government and ratchet up pressure on Macron.
In his final address as prime minister to the National Assembly, Bayrou acknowledged that staking his leadership was a dangerous bet. But he argued that France's mounting debt crisis left him no choice but to demand legislative backing for corrective measures, warning of what he described as "a silent, underground, invisible, and unbearable hemorrhage" of unchecked borrowing.
"The greatest risk was to not take one, to let things go on without changing anything, to go on doing politics as usual," he said. "Submission to debt is like submission through military force. Dominated by weapons, or dominated by our creditors, because of a debt that is submerging us — in both cases, we lose our freedom."
By the end of the first quarter of 2025, France's public debt had climbed to €3.346 trillion, equal to 114% of gross domestic product. Servicing that debt remains one of the state's largest expenses, consuming roughly 7% of government spending.
The 577-seat National Assembly cut short its summer recess to stage an extraordinary session marked by high political drama. Macron's opponents seized on the turmoil to press for a fresh legislative election, demand the president's resignation, or maneuver for influence in a potential new government.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen urged Macron to once again dissolve the Assembly, confident that her National Rally party and its allies could capture a majority in snap elections and take the reins of government.
"France is a great nation and cannot function with a paper government, especially in such a tormented and dangerous world," Le Pen declared from the Assembly floor.
