France's Prime Minister Francois Bayrou faces his first vote of no confidence in parliament.
Image: Bertrand GUAY / AFP
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou faces his first vote of no confidence in parliament Thursday, with the motion unlikely to pass.
The challenge in the National Assembly comes after Bayrou's statement this week on his government policy agenda, in which he opened the door to fresh talks on a 2023 pension reform "without taboo" but also said that France's "excessive" deficits needed to be cut in this year's budget.
The speech sparked condemnation from most of the opposition in parliament where Bayrou is well short of an absolute majority, making his government highly vulnerable to a no-confidence vote that, if successful, would force it to resign.
Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), dismissed it as "idle talk" by "a man of spineless continuity".
But the no-confidence motion, submitted by the hard-left LFI party, will nevertheless not get the RN's backing, party members have said.
"We don't think a no-confidence vote should be a political tool for attention," RN deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy said, with the RN's vice-president, Sebastien Chenu, saying his party would judge the government "not by its words, but by its actions".
Tanguy warned, however, that the RN might still come after Bayrou over his budget for 2025 which is overdue after the previous government of Michel Barnier was toppled over its austerity plans. The new government's budget announcement would be a "moment of truth", Tanguy said.
In the absence of far right backing, the no-confidence motion cannot obtain the 288 votes necessary to topple Bayrou even if the moderate-left Socialists join the LFI's initiative, which was still uncertain hours before the vote.
The motion is to be debated from 3pm with a vote expected by early evening.
French politics was plunged into chaos last year when President Emmanuel Macron called an election to break political deadlock, but the vote returned a hopelessly divided lower chamber.
Macron has acknowledged his decision to dissolve the National Assembly had led to "divisions" and "instability".
Constitutional rules mean new legislative elections cannot be called until July.
AFP