Ammon News - French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to appoint a new prime minister "within days" after lawmakers ousted François Bayrou in a no-confidence vote Monday, marking the collapse of France’s third government since snap elections last year. The political upheaval leaves Macron scrambling to restore stability amid mounting national debt, a fractured parliament, and growing public discontent.

Legislators toppled France’s government in a confidence vote on Monday, a new crisis for Europe’s second-largest economy that obliges President Emmanuel Macron to search for a fourth prime minister in 12 months.

Prime Minister François Bayrou was ousted overwhelmingly in a 364-194 vote against him. Bayrou paid the price for what appeared to be a staggering political miscalculation, gambling that lawmakers would back his view that France must slash public spending to rein in its debts. Instead, they seized on the vote that Bayrou called to gang up against the 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Macron last December.

The demise of Bayrou’s short-lived minority government – now constitutionally obliged to submit its resignation after just under nine months in office – heralds renewed uncertainty and a risk of prolonged legislative deadlock for France as it wrestles with pressing challenges, including budget difficulties and, internationally, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the shifting priorities of US President Donald Trump.

Although Macron had two weeks to prepare for the government collapse after Bayrou announced in August that he’d seek a confidence vote on his unpopular budget plans, no clear front-runner has emerged as a successor.

AFP