Paris, Sep 9 (AP) Another prime minister gone. Another crisis is unfolding. In France, what once shocked is now routine.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is submitting his resignation on Tuesday after losing a crushing confidence vote in parliament. The third toppling of a head of government in 14 months leaves President Emmanuel Macron scrambling for a successor and a nation caught in a cycle of collapse.
Bayrou, 74, lasted just nine months in office. Even that was three times longer than his predecessor’s.
He gambled on a budget demanding over EUR 40 billion in savings. The plan froze welfare, cut civil-service jobs, and even scrapped two public holidays that many French see as part of their national rhythm.
Bayrou warned that without action, the national debt, which is now 114 per cent of GDP, would bring “domination by creditors” as surely as by foreign powers.
Instead, he united his enemies. The far right of Marine Le Pen and a left-wing alliance voted him down, 364 to 194. Polls showed most French wanted him gone. By the time lawmakers cast their ballots, Bayrou already had invited allies to a farewell drink.
Macron appears boxed in The president has promised to name a new prime minister “in the coming days.” It will be his fourth in under two years.
There are several possible replacements: Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, former Socialist premier Bernard Cazeneuve and Finance Minister Eric Lombard.
The problem is not the personnel, though; it is the arithmetic.
Since Macron’s snap election in 2024, parliament has been split into three rival blocs: far left, centrists, and far right. None commands a majority. France has no tradition of coalition-building, and every budget becomes a battle.
Macron has ruled out another election for now. Le Pen insists he must call one. Opinion polls suggest her National Rally would cement its lead if it did. With just 18 months left in his presidency and his approval rating at 15 per cent, the risk for Macron is existential.
Anger is rising in the streets On Monday night, about 11,000 demonstrators feted Bayrou’s ouster outside town halls in“Bye Bye Bayrou” farewell drinks.
Some came for the celebration. Many stayed to organise.
Wednesday has been declared a day of action under the slogan “Block Everything.” Protesters plan to shut fuel depots, highways, and city centres. The government is deploying 80,000 police.
France has seen mass uprisings before: pensions in 2023, the yellow vests in 2018. But this time the anger runs deeper. It is not just about one reform. It is about austerity, inequality and the sense that governments keep collapsing while nothing changes.
The budget presents a trap The numbers are stark. France’s deficit stands at nearly 6 per cent of GDP, which is about EUR 198 billion. EU rules demand it be cut below 3 per cent.
Bayrou’s cuts fell on workers and retirees. Voters saw this as unfair. After years of tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, patience has snapped. Polls show an overwhelming majority of French people want higher taxes on the ultra-rich.
Earlier this year, the lower house passed a rich tax — a 2 per cent levy on fortunes above EUR 100 million. It would have hit fewer than 2,000 households but raised EUR 25 billion annually. Yet Macron’s pro-business allies, historically wary of scaring off investment, killed it in the Senate.
Bayrou pressed on with cuts that hit the working and middle classes the most.
For many, the contrast was glaring: austerity for millions, protection for billionaires.
The President is under pressure Macron’s room to manoeuvre is shrinking. A loyal centrist premier may survive only months. A Socialist might insist on wealth taxes that Macron refuses. New elections could hand Le Pen even greater power.
Le Pen, convicted of embezzlement and barred from office for five years, is appealing her sentence from January. In the meantime, she promotes her protege Jordan Bardella as a ready prime minister. The prospect is one Macron dreads.
Abroad, Macron seeks to project French influence in Ukraine and Gaza. At home, he looks cornered. Even whispers of resignation can be heard, though his departure is unlikely.
History is repeating Four prime ministers in 16 months. A debt crisis is grinding the economy. A nation paralysed by political deadlock. It sounds like France today. In fact, it was France after World War II.
Out of that paralysis, Charles de Gaulle built the Fifth Republic, a system meant to banish such chaos forever. Seven decades later, the Republic he forged to ward off collapse is confronting the very crisis it was designed to prevent.
Politics is now fractured into three camps. With no tradition of compromise, unlike Germany or Italy, the result is stalemate.
“The question posed now is that of the survival of our political system,” political analyst Alain Duhamel told the newspaper Le Monde. “In 1958, there was an alternative in the form of De Gaulle. Like him or detest him, he unquestionably had a project.” Why it matters France is the eurozone’s second-largest economy, its only nuclear power and a permanent United Nations Security Council member. Prolonged instability in the country reverberates far beyond its borders.
France’s political difficulty weakens Europe’s hand against Russia. It rattles investors and undermines the credibility of EU fiscal rules.
At home, it chips away at trust in the state itself. France’s welfare system — pensions, health care, education — is not just policy. It is identity. Each attempt to trim the structure feels like an assault on the model of solidarity that defines modern France.
The road ahead is not routine Macron’s next appointment will test whether the Fifth Republic can still deliver stability. Whoever takes the job will face the same trap that consumed Bayrou: pass a budget in a parliament that cannot agree.
Gabriel Attal, a former premier from Macron’s camp, calls the cycle of collapse “an absolutely distressing spectacle” and proposes installing a political mediator to help forge a strong coalition. His warning is blunt: France cannot keep toppling governments every few months.
De Gaulle built the Republic to end the chaos of the 1950s. Now, as protesters prepare to blockade the nation, many fear even that safeguard is failing.
France waits for a name, a budget, a way forward. For proof that order can still rise from drift and collapse is not the new routine. (AP) SKS GSP
