Since president Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election last year, there has been no absolute majority in the national assembly – a hung parliament, impossibly divided by their political imperatives.
It is divided into three blocs – the left, centre and far right – which has made France nearly ungovernable. Unlike Germany, postwar France doesn’t have the tradition of building coalition governments; rather than finding consensus, they have found themselves in crisis, and these divisions have shown up most when it comes to public spending.
Bayrou was ousted overwhelmingly in a 364-194 vote against him. The primary reason for his fall was his unpopular budget, which involved scrapping two public holidays and freezing most welfare spending. France faces acute pressure to repair its finances. Bayrou said his €44bn (£38bn) debt-reduction plan was needed because France’s deficit hit 5.8% of gross domestic product last year – way above the official EU limit of 3%.
At the end of the first quarter of 2025, France’s public debt stood at €3.346tn, or 114% of GDP. Bayrou told the public that young people would be saddled with years of debt repayments “for the sake of the comfort of the boomers” if they failed to take action.
Bayrou paid the price for what appeared to be a staggering political miscalculation. “Part of Bayrou’s problem was that he decided that he was going to be this great ‘truth-sayer’ about the state of France’s public finances. He said ‘look, we are collapsing under the weight of debt’. The public knows there hasn’t been a balanced budget in France for several decades. Voters have this as one of their key concerns,” said Angelique Chrisafis.
However, in all his many TV interviews, he kept hammering home what a big problem debt is, while avoiding talking about who was responsible for it. Opposition parties want Macron to reflect on the impact his policies have had on public debt – notably his choice of pro-business economics in which taxes are cut for businesses and the very wealthy, which the left says has partially led the country into this mess, explains Angelique. “We’re left in this position where parties can’t agree on what went wrong,” she said.
“Macron’s difficulty is that he is clinging desperately to his own economic approach, his pro-business stance of cutting the tax burden on businesses, which he says increases growth and productivity. But growth has not been as much as was expected.”
The office of the French president said he would make a decision on the next prime minister “in the coming days”.
Deeper political crisis
Underlying this is the deepening mistrust between people and their politicians (sound familiar?) that is likely to blight the country’s politics until the 2027 presidential election and beyond.
“There is a sense of great disappointment that legislation, parliament and politics has not been addressing people’s worries about the cost of living, about the state of public services. Many people who work in hospitals and the health system say they’ve faced years of cuts, which are making their jobs very difficult,” Angelique said.
Research has shown poverty in France is increasing, with growing concentrations of inherited wealth sparking comparisons to the 19th century. Marion Carrel, sociology professor at the University of Lille, said there was a feeling of “the little people versus the big”, which gave a “pre-revolutionary” atmosphere.
National Rally – the biggest single party in terms of votes in the National Assembly – is trying to capitalise on the instability to make electoral gains. “The far right is using this crisis to try and say, ‘Well, look, people always thought we weren’t experienced enough to be in power, or that we’d bring some kind of chaos, but look at the instability now’,” said Angelique. “Certainly the far right is a force to be reckoned with, and will continue to be up until the presidential election.”
As France is the eurozone’s second-biggest economy, this deadlock has implications for Europe as it is desperately trying to find unity in the face of three era-defining challenges: the war in Ukraine, trade tensions with the US, and the increasing dominance of China.
Why can’t France find a stable government?
The centrist Macron is now tasked with appointing his third prime minister in a year, and the fifth since he took office in 2022. There is no obvious consensus figure to replace Bayrou.
Macron’s protege Gabriel Attal left in September 2024 after he stayed on a caretaker role following last year’s inconclusive snap election. Former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier followed him, but was toppled by a no-confidence vote in December, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in France’s modern republic.
France is so divided politically that any new choice of prime minister could quite easily face a quick challenge – they will encounter deadlock in parliament, and find it impossible to push through a budget.
“We’re in this great political fighting pit ahead of the local elections next spring 2026 and presidential in 2027. There is really no move for people to cooperate among this fragmented parliament,” said Angelique. “Macron now begins this strange period of trying to do the arithmetic to see whether there could be any kind of pact with other parties.”
Macron has said he’ll stay in government until the end of his term, but is a lame duck if this political paralysis continues. A poll for Le Figaro magazine found just 15% of French people trust Macron to solve the crisis.
The National Rally party are easily ahead in the polls, but probably wouldn’t get an absolute majority, because there are many voters in France who would vote tactically to hold them back. “If we were to have a snap election right now, it could return exactly the same results currently in parliament,” said Angelique.
How will the public respond?
Never shy to take to the streets, French people are expected to protest next week, in a movement known as Block Everything. This is likely to involve street demonstrations followed by union-led hospital and rail strikes. This could awake memories of the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) – which led the anti-government protest movement in 2018 as well as the separate protest movement in 2023 against Macron’s increase to the pension age.
“There’s a lot of anger among people who are planning protests across France, whether it will be blockading shops or roads or roundabouts or protesting in the streets, and that is reflective of a great distrust between people in France and their politicians,” said Angelique.
Macron will be under pressure to find a new prime minister quickly to end uncertainty. “The pressure is on to try to convince its voters, its businesses and its international partners that it’s stable, that it’s not falling into an unsolvable moment of political crisis.”
