Emmanuel Macron has given his “full support” to France’s beleaguered prime minister, François Bayrou, who is expected to lose a confidence vote next month, which would be likely to cause the government to collapse.
Macron chaired a cabinet meeting on Wednesday as France faces a fresh political crisis. The government spokesperson, Sophie Primas, said after the meeting that Macron fully supported Bayrou and the government was in a “fighting spirit”.
Bayrou, a centrist and Macron ally, announced this week he would call a confidence vote for 8 September, seeking parliament’s support for his austerity measures to cut public spending and reduce public debt.
Opposition parties have said they will vote to oust Bayrou, who polls show is the least popular prime minister since 1958. Bayrou’s proposals for a €44bn budget squeeze, which include scrapping two public holidays and freezing most welfare spending, are widely unpopular.
Primas said Macron believed there should be neither “denial nor catastrophising” about the state of France’s public finances and that opposition parties must show “responsibility”.
She said the government’s budget proposals were necessary. “France is a solid country with solid economics … but we must take the reins of our destiny,” Primas said. Describing Macron’s remarks to cabinet, she said: “It’s a strong signal that we are sending to the financial markets that we want to have a France that is even more solid.”
Macron is still dealing with the fallout from a political crisis that began last summer when he called a surprise snap election that resulted in a deadlocked parliament with no absolute majority. Since then, the national assembly has been split between the left, the far right and the centre.
Michel Barnier, the rightwing prime minister chosen by Macron last September to try to bring together the fragmented parliament, was ousted after only three months in office when his budget plans were rejected and the government was toppled.
Bayrou followed Barnier and he will have been in office for only nine months if the government is toppled once again. Even if Macron replaces him swiftly, it is not certain that a new appointee would be able to secure consensus on a budget for next year in the bitterly divided parliament.
Calls were growing on Wednesday for Macron to call another snap parliamentary election less than 18 months after the last. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally favours a new election as it hopes it can gain seats.
A large majority of French people want parliament dissolved for another election, according to polls by Ifop, Elabe and Toluna Harris Interactive. Macron said earlier this month that he wanted to avoid dissolving parliament again but he has also suggested he could not rule out the option.
Macron’s former prime minister Édouard Philippe, who now heads the centre-right Horizons party, said that if a stalemate persisted and no other government could come up with a budget, an election seemed inevitable.
Gabriel Attal, another former prime minister and the head of Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, said he did not think a new election would necessarily bring stability or clarity.
Bayrou warned that France’s debt is unsustainable, particularly as interest rate rises push up the cost of borrowing. After years of overspending, France is on notice to control its public deficit and cut its debt, as required under EU rules. All political parties agree that public debt is an issue but they disagree on how to tackle it.
