French President Macron Faces More Chaos as Latest PM is Toppled

No matter who he picks as new PM, acute political crisis will only deepen

- Jonathan Eyal

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to select a new prime minister "in the next few days" after the government of Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a vote of confidence in the French Parliament on Sept 8.

Yet there is little doubt that Mr Macron's authority has been severely damaged by the fall of his Cabinet.

And most political observers in the French capital predict that, almost regardless of who Mr Macron picks as head of a new government, the country's acute political crisis will only deepen.

Outgoing Prime Minister Bayrou, France's fourth head of government in two years, has barely completed nine months in office. Mr Bayrou acknowledged from the start that his prospects were dim. "I know that the chances of difficulties are greater than the chances of success," he told the people of France on Dec 13, 2024, his first day in office.

The French Parliament remains deeply divided between the far-right National Rally, an anti-immigrant, nationalist movement, and the France Unbowed coalition of far-left parties. Neither can govern on its own, and neither would think of joining hands in a coalition; the only thing that unites these two political extremes is a rejection of anything Mr Macron and his allies represent or do.

Yet despite such unpromising prospects, Mr Bayrou pinned his government's chance of survival on two assumptions.

To begin with, he believed that, faced with almost no economic growth and a crushing public debt burden amounting to 114 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, French MPs would be reluctant to prolong the political crisis by toppling his government.

France is already paying more for its long-term borrowing needs than either Italy or Greece, the only other European Union countries with higher debt than France, primarily because investors consider France to be a higher political risk.