PARIS (AP) — Another prime minister gone. Another crisis unfolding. In France, what once shocked is now routine.
Prime Minister François Bayrou submitted his resignation 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.
He gambled on a budget demanding over €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% 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. 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, among them: Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, former Socialist premier Bernard Cazeneuve and Finance Minister Eric Lombard.
Speculation has grown around Lombard, who has roots in Socialist governments, as Macron considers a leftward shift in order to secure a strong enough coalition.
But the problem is not the personnel. It is the arithmetic.
Whoever takes the job will face the same trap that consumed Bayrou: Pass a budget in a parliament that cannot agree.
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.
But Macron’s room to maneuver is shrinking and 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 protégé Jordan Bardella as a ready prime minister — a scenario Macron has every reason to avoid.
The president has ruled out another election for now, but Le Pen insists he must call one. Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon has urged a rewrite of the Constitution to weaken what he calls a “presidential monarchy.”
With just 18 months left in his term-limited presidency and his approval rating at 15%, the risk for Macron is existential. Even fresh calls for his resignation can be heard, though Macron has ruled it out.
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 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.
Anger 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 celebration. Many stayed to organize.
Wednesday has been declared a day of action under the slogan “Block Everything.” Protesters plan to shut fuel depots, highways, and city centers. The government is deploying 80,000 police.
France has seen mass uprisings before: pensions in 2023, the Yellow Vests in 2018. The current movement echoes the latter, which at their peak brought France to a standstill. Analysts warn that if Macron once again ignores popular discontent, unrest could spiral.
But this time the anger runs perhaps 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% of GDP, which is about €198 billion. EU rules demand it be cut below 3%.
Bayrou’s cure was cuts that fell on workers and retirees. Voters saw this as unfair. After years of tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, patience has snapped.
Earlier this year, the lower house passed a rich tax proposal — a 2% levy on fortunes above €100 million. It would have hit fewer than 2,000 households but raised €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.
History repeating
Four prime ministers in under two years. A debt crisis grinding the economy. A nation paralyzed by political deadlock. It sounds like France today. In fact, it was France in the late 1950s, when the Fourth Republic collapsed under the weight of drift and division.
Charles de Gaulle built the Fifth Republic, bolstering the presidency to end the revolving-door governments of the Fourth. The new constitution gave the president powers to dissolve parliament, call referendums and appoint the prime minister.
Seven decades later, the system designed to guarantee stability is confronting the same storm.
Gabriel Attal, himself a fallen premier, calls the current cycle of collapse “an absolutely distressing spectacle” and has urged the appointment of a coalition mediator — a role France’s system wasn't supposed to need. His warning is stark: No republic can keep discarding leaders every few months without threatening its survival.
French politics is fractured into three hostile camps. With no tradition of compromise, unlike Germany or Italy, stalemate has become the rule.
“The question posed now is that of the survival of our political system,” political analyst Alain Duhamel told Le Monde. “In 1958 there was an alternative in the form of de Gaulle. Like him or detest him, he unquestionably had a project.”
Today, there is no de Gaulle. Only an embattled president, a divided parliament, and a Republic waiting to prove it can still hold.
___
Associated Press journalist Masha Macpherson contributed to this report.
