The French government lived to see another day on Wednesday, after it survived a vote of distrust in Parliament and gave the Prime Minister recently appointed temporary recovery for months of political turbulence and the country a promise of stability, at least shortly term.
The motion of no confidence was supported by only 128 legislators in the 577 -seater national assembly, the lower part of France, short of the absolute majority required. If he had passed, the motion would have forced the centrist Prime Minister, François Bayrou, and his cabinet to resign.
The failure of the motion guarantees a safe passage of an invoice of the 2025 budget of which France needs serious – has operated with temporary arrest funding since the beginning of the year – and that the hopes of the government renew the debt and the deficit Increased the country, with a target objective to generate 50 billion euros in savings through taxes and shopping cuts.
The invoice of the budget is now going to the Senate for Thursday’s final approval. Bayrou is pushing through other invoices that govern the expenditure for health care and other social security costs, exposing his government to new distrust movements, but should also survive those.
The biggest problem of Mr. Bayrou to manage a government in hostile territory has not been solved. The low room is deeply divided, with a centrist-assignor blockage that supports him and two main opposition wings-a small left-wing parties alliance called the new popular front and the anti-immigration party of extreme right-that do not do it.
But the vote and the new budget for now will give one of the leading economies in Europe a semblance of stability. Mr. Bayrou, an allied centrist of President Emmanuel Macron, was appointed just over a month ago – the fourth Prime Minister in a year, unusual for France.
“He is living day by day, taking one step after another,” said Rémi Lefebvre, professor of political science at the University of Lille. “But there are other incoming tests,” he added. “I don’t believe in the longevity of Bayrou’s government, but for now he is buying time.”
Bayrou, listing challenges including war in Ukraine and aggressive foreign policy and without cooking of President Trump, said on Wednesday to the legislators that France could not afford to face “Tsunami advancement” “worsening our weaknesses and our divisions” .
France, he said, “must recover his strength, solidarity and his pride”.
To see the budget through, Bayrou used a constitutional provision that pushes a bill through the national assembly without a final vote but exposes it to an elusive motion. French governments often use this tool when they do not have a majority to support a bill, even if critics say that it is an unjust tactic for the legislators of the strong arm and that the governments under Mr. Macron used it abundantly.
Michel Barnier, Mr. Bayrou’s predecessor, used the same disposition in December but was ousted.
On Wednesday the movement of the escort was not presented by the unbuttoned party of France in France. This time, Mr. Bayrou avoided the same fate as Mr. Barnier courting and negotiating with the socialist party, who decided to refrain from supporting the motion of no confidence despite the shouts of treason from his allies in the new popular front.
He also benefited from the temporary benevolence of the national rally, which he also announced this week that he will not vote for the motion of trust.
Both sides reported the budget as a bad guy. But both also argued that a bad budget was better than any budget and that the prolonged political instability was irresponsible.
The Socialist Party has chosen to snatch any concession that could in the budget, for example, ensuring that 4,000 teaching positions would not be cut.
“We are clear; These progress does not make this budget, “said Emmanuel Grégoire, a socialist legislator, in the lower chamber while defending the position of his party. But without a budget, he added, France is” weakened and without resources “.
“Even a bad budget is used to finance public services, support the economy, make investments and finance our national defense,” said Grégoire. However, he added, the Socialist Party had “neither indulgence nor complacency” for the government of Mr. Bayrou and remained firmly in opposition.
To underline this point, the socialists will present a separate motion of no confidence in the coming weeks to the criticisms that the government was promoting a “supervise an” immersion feeling “in the country. The comments aroused criticism from the left that was echoing discussion points of discussion extreme right.
The decision of the socialist party to negotiate with the government and to let him survive him slightly changed the dynamic in Parliament, releasing Mr. Bayrou from the socket that the far right has held on his predecessor and helping the socialists to stand out in the new popular front.
“They returned to the political game,” said Lefebvre, the analyst.
But the calculation of the socialists was welcomed with derision among other members of the left alliance, which has the largest number of places in the low room but has been increasingly torn from the internal divisions.
“There is only one way to express your opposition to the budget, only one way to express your opposition to the government, and this is voting for a motion of elusive,” Aurélie Trouvé, a legislator in France said on Wednesday on Wednesday
The future motion of distrust of the Socialist Party will also be expected to fail because it is unlikely to receive support on the right and the far right. But he underlines the fact that the success of Bayrou’s government on Wednesday was fragile.
It has yet to navigate in a fractured political landscape in which both the left alliance and the national event can attract the trigger on a escape movement when it adapts to them.
Some compared Mr. Bayrou to a trustee of the condominium council – with the power to make the building work and solve small quarrels, but nothing more.
“His dilemma is that he cannot issue the meaning that is inactive and does nothing,” said Benjamin Morel, a professor of public law at the Pantéon-Assas University in Paris. “But it does not have the means to adopt that agenda, because today any bill that is basically controversial risks that breaks down the government”.
That enigma arrives in a particularly delicate moment for France, which is currently one of the most difficult countries in Europe. Its hot air balloon debt and the deficit shocked the financial markets.
The government aims to curb the public deficit at 5.4 percent of the gross domestic product in 2025, falling compared to 6.1 percent in 2024, through a mix of public spending cuts and tax increases, including a Temporary one year tax on the richest families in France and most profitable companies.
The new budget also includes an increase in taxes on air tickets, a special one -year tax on maritime navigation companies and cuts to different government budgets, including the ministries of the environment, culture and work.
The high advice of public finance, an official body given the task of evaluating the government’s economic and budget forecasts, declared in a report of the last week that the new budget would have “kicked off the trajectory of reducing the deficit so necessary “, But he offered” little maneuver margin, “with a government goal” achievable but slightly optimistic “to achieve the growth of 0.9 percent in 2025.