By Elizabeth Pineau
PARIS (Reuters) -French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou will seek a high-stakes confidence vote in parliament on September 8 over unpopular plans to clean up France’s public finances.
Bayrou’s move will gauge whether he has enough support in a fragmented parliament for his 44 billion euro ($51.51 billion) budget squeeze as he tries to tame a budget deficit that hit 5.8% of gross domestic product last year, nearly double the official EU limit of 3%.
If he loses the confidence vote, Bayrou’s minority government will fall.
“We face an immediate danger, which we must tackle … otherwise we have no future,” Bayrou told a news conference about the debt burden. “Our country is in danger.”
Bayrou said the confidence vote would focus on whether lawmakers agree with the gravity of the danger, and choose the path ahead to fix it.
Bayrou’s efforts at belt-tightening have come under fire from both the left and the right, meaning that he faced the risk of a no-confidence vote like the one that toppled his predecessor, Michel Barnier, in late 2024 after just three months in office.
With his announcement on Monday, Bayrou is seeking a vote on his government’s fate before the opposition calls a no-confidence vote.
The confidence vote will take place just two days before planned protests, which have been called for on social media and backed by leftist parties and some unions.
The September 10 call for general protests has drawn comparisons to the Yellow Vest protests that erupted in 2018 over fuel price hikes and the high cost of living.
Before that, taxi drivers are expected to restart demonstrations on September 5 against the government’s plans to overhaul compensation for medical trips.
The “gilets jaunes” protests spiralled into a broader movement against President Emmanuel Macron and his efforts at economic reform.
Bayrou has proposed scrapping two public holidays and freezing welfare spending and tax brackets in 2026 at 2025 levels, not adjusting them for inflation.
($1 = 0.8536 euros)
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Elizabeth Pineau; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Makini Brice; Editing by David Holmes and Alison Williams)
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