As expected, a motion of censure has been passed by French MPs, resulting in the rejection of the 2025 budget and the collapse of the government headed since September by PM Michel Barnier.
The motion of censure was adopted by 331 votes, 289 being sufficient to guarantee its adoption.
It all began with Michel Barnier’s decision on Monday, December 2nd, to hold his government responsible for the vote on the 2025 budget. Unable to count on a majority of MPs, he resorted to the use of Article 49.3 of the Constitution to force its passage, which led to the filing of two motions of censure aimed at blocking the budget and dismissing the government.
This is the first time since the start of the Fifth Republic that a government has been toppled as a consequence of the executive using Article 49.3. The laborious negotiations with the various political parties over the last few days failed to produce a majority in support of the finance bill. The Rassemblement National (RN) played a major role in the final phase, submitting recommendations that were not followed by the prime minister. On Sunday, December 1st, noting the deadlock, Marine Le Pen announced her decision to have her party join the Left to secure the prime minister’s head.
Two motions were proposed: one by the left-wing coalition, the other by the RN. The Left, through the voice of Éric Coquerel, MP for La France Insoumise and chair of the finance committee, attacked the government for its failure to take account of the needs of the poorest members of society, and for its refusal to reverse the ‘tax giveaways’ granted to big business and the wealthiest individuals. Marine Le Pen then took the floor to violently attack a government and a budget “without direction or vision,” stubbornly locked in the ‘technocratic winter’ that has plunged France into disarray since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, and then in 2022. She reminded the Assembly of her party’s three imperatives: “immigration, purchasing power, security” and concluded that she had not been heard on any of these points. The leader of the RN deputies also condemned the numerous renegades of the ministers of the ‘common base,’i.e., the presidential camp, who had sworn to oppose tax increases—before enacting new ones to the tune of €40 billion.
The left-wing motion was voted on first by MPs in the early evening of December 4th and won a majority of votes thanks to a fortuitous alliance between the Left, the RN and its allies, leading to the collapse of Michel Barnier’s short-lived government, which set the sad record for the shortest government in the Fifth Republic.
There is now great uncertainty at the highest levels of state.With no possibility of dissolving the National Assembly before next June, President Macron has no alternative solution to offer. Having rushed back from Saudi Arabia, he will have to tackle the difficult task of finding a successor to Michel Barnier. Having already needed more than two months to find a credible candidate for the post of prime minister, he has promised that, this time, he will appoint a new head of government “quickly.” The left-wing coalition is calling for the president to be impeached. The RN, for its part, believes that it is now the responsibility of the head of state to resign of his own accord to acknowledge his political failure.
