French President Emmanuel Macron is facing a new political headache after his ally, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, suffered a resounding defeat on Monday, predictably losing a confidence vote in Parliament and leaving the French president looking weak as the country seems increasingly ungovernable.
Bayrou called the vote to force lawmakers to get behind his deeply unpopular 2026 budget, which included approximately $52 billion worth of cuts and the elimination of two federal holidays, among other austerity measures to address the country’s fiscal issues. France’s mounting debt stood at 114% of GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2025.
The result? Just 194 lawmakers voted in Bayrou’s favor in the 577-seat National Assembly, dealing a devastating blow to the centrist politician.
Bayrou submitted his resignation on Tuesday after just nine months in power, plunging the country into a fresh political crisis.
“It is the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that a prime minister loses a vote of no confidence,” Tara Varma, a visiting fellow in the Center of the United States and Europe at Brookings, told HuffPost.
