Members of the French parliament of the Socialist Party, after talks with Prime Minister Michel Barnier, said they would vote for no confidence in his government, increasing the probability of its collapse, Politico reported.
Socialists might vote for no confidence in Barnier’s minority government
Patrick Kanner, leader of the Socialist group in the Senate, the upper house of the French parliament, said that the meeting with the French prime minister was held in a warm atmosphere, but he did not put forward “any concrete proposals” to convince him to support his minority government.
Kanner added that Barnier is “a continuation of the policy pursued by [French President – Ed.] Emmanuel Macron over the past seven years, which has led to unprecedented deficits.”
53% of the French support government resignation – poll
More than half of the French are in favor of the government’s resignation over the proposed budget. This is evidenced by an Ifop-Fiducial poll for Sud Radio, cited by Reuters.
About 53% of the French want the minority government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier to resign over the budget.
The poll showed that 67% oppose Barnier’s budget, while only 33% supported it.
The proposed budget aims to reduce France’s growing public deficit by raising taxes by 60 billion euros and cutting spending.
Minority government needs support of either Socialists or far-right RN
Conservatives and center-rightists form the current minority government in France, which requires the backing of at least one significant parliamentary group, either the Socialists or the far-right National Rally.
The likelihood that the government will lose such support has increased amid discussions of the draft budget for 2025, which does not fully satisfy either the socialists or the far right.
Barnier, lacking a majority in parliament, sought to invoke a special French constitutional procedure that bypasses legislators for certain decisions but also automatically triggers a vote of no confidence in the government.
Le Pen threatened to withdraw her support for coalition government
Due to her dissatisfaction with the draft budget, the leader of the far-right National Rally, Marine Le Pen, has threatened to withdraw her support for the French coalition government in the event of a vote of no confidence after talks with Prime Minister Michel Barnier failed to meet her party’s demands for budget concessions, Reuters reported.
Le Pen said that nothing had changed after the discussions and that she was not optimistic about reaching a compromise on the 2025 budget bill.
French Prime Minister urges MPs not to vote for no confidence in the government
French Prime Minister Michel Barnier called on MPs to refrain from voting for no confidence in the government, emphasizing that this would disrupt the adoption of the budget in a situation where the country needs to solve the debt problem, BFMTV reported.
Barnier noted that the adoption of the 2025 budget would be disrupted if the far left, far right, and some of the Socialists and the Greens united their votes and expressed no confidence in the government.
“If there is an alliance in the vote, unlikely but possible, between the votes of Mr. Mélenchon, the far left LFI and the votes of Madame Le Pen, the Rassemblement National with the Socialist Party and the Greens, I fall, the government stops, there is no more budget. There will be a storm, serious turbulence on the financial markets”, declared Michel Barnier on TF1’s 8 o’clock news.
Barnier reiterated that he may invoke a special constitutional provision that allows for the approval of projects without parliamentary consideration—in exchange for a vote of confidence in the government—because he believes it is necessary to implement the steps he has identified to reduce the budget deficit.
