François Bayrou remains French Prime Minister after surviving a no-confidence vote, ensuring the adoption of the contentious 2025 budget plan.
French Prime Minister François Bayrou survived his second confidence vote in less than one month this Wednesday.
The vote came after the recently appointed head of government used a controversial constitutional tool known as Article 49.3 to push through the country’s long-overdue 2025 budget plan through parliament without a vote from the MPs on Monday.
In turn, this opened his government to the risk of a no-confidence motion 48 hours later, which was backed by the hard-left France Unbowed Party (LFI), the Greens, and the Communists (all part of the left-wing coalition NFP).
Surviving the vote means the budget plan is automatically adopted. The contentious bill aimed to cut an eye-watering €30bn and raise taxes by €20bn to limit France’s deficit to 5.4% of GDP this year.