France's political crisis reveals a deep rift between the people and their politicians

As the French government faces likely collapse in a confidence vote today, Jonathan Denis, a health rights campaigner, was concerned about the terrible impact on France's dying and terminally ill.

- Angelique Chrisafis

The country's centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, had promised that assisted dying and improved palliative care would be the biggest social reform of his second term. But the bill, which had been scheduled to go before the senate next month, now risks being delayed by the unpredictable revolving door of four prime ministers in just over three years.

Denis, a 42-year-old bank manager, said: "Sick people who are suffering and want a form of assisted dying because they can't cope, will find this catastrophic. If they have the money, they'll have to travel to Switzerland, or people will violently take their lives, which unfortunately is often the case in France."

Denis's father, a laboratory technician in rural eastern France with terminal cancer, chose to end his life through illegal, clandestine euthanasia in 2008.

"I was plunged into grief while having to keep the secret about how he died," said Denis, who leads the campaign for assisted dying and palliative care. It is a sign of France's troubled and patchy health service that a fifth of France's départements don't have a dedicated palliative care unit. This has come to symbolise how Macron, despite his diplomatic efforts on the world stage, is facing political deadlock.

François Bayrou, a 74-year-old politician who calls himself a consensus builder, is expected to be ousted as prime minister in a confidence vote today, which will bring down his minority government after only nine months. His predecessor, the rightwing former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, lasted only three months before he was brought down.

On the surface, the reason for Bayrou's fall is the budget. His unpopular €44bn (£38bn) debt-reduction plan, including scrapping two public holidays and freezing most welfare spending, was widely rejected.