French government faces collapse after PM pushes through budget bill

French Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government is hanging on by a thread.

On Monday, Barnier, who lacks a majority in the National Assembly — the lower house of the French parliament — activated the controversial Article 49.3 of the French Constitution to pass his social security plan for next year without a vote.

This, in turn, allows opposition parties to launch a no-confidence vote. Both the left-wing coalition NFP and far-right National Rally (RN) have announced they will file separate censure motions. The confidence vote could come as early as Wednesday.

“The French are fed up with being mistreated (…) We cannot leave the situation as it is,” firebrand National Rally mainstay Marine Le Pen said on Monday.

Valérie Pecresse, the conservative right-wing president of the Ile-de-France region, denounced both the left and far-right for adding to the “political chaos to the economic and moral crisis we are going through.”

What happens now?

Either the motion will be passed by the majority, bringing down the Barnier government, or it will be rejected, and the Social Security bill will be adopted and sent back to the Senate.

A total of 289 votes are needed to topple the government.

However, the first option seems the most plausible, considering all four parties in the left-wing coalition NFP have declared they are filing a motion — that’s between 180 and 192 seats.

The far right and its allies have 141 seats. If all MPs from both groups vote to topple Barnier’s government, they will have more than enough seats needed to do so.

If the government fell, it would be the first successful no-confidence vote since 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president.

This is the second major political crisis that France has faced in the last six months. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron called for snap elections, which ended in a hung parliament with no party obtaining an absolute majority, eventually leading to Barnier’s appointment.

The French PM had warned the opposition that failing to pass a budget by the end of the year could further rattle financial markets.

“There will probably be quite a serious storm and serious turbulence in the financial markets,” Barnier said, adding that the French people wanted “stability”.