French PM Francois Bayrou loses confidence vote

• French lawmakers voted to oust Prime Minister Francois Bayrou and his minority government with 364 votes against the veteran centrist politician and 194 in his favour.

• President Emmanuel Macron, who is facing calls from the opposition to dissolve Parliament and resign, will instead hunt for his fifth Prime Minister in less than two years.

• Bayrou paid the price for what appeared to be a staggering political miscalculation, gambling that lawmakers would back his view that France must slash public spending to rein in its debts. 

• Instead, they seized on the vote that Bayrou called to gang up against the 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Macron in December 2024.

• Bayrou’s fall came after he staked his government on an emergency confidence debate centred on the question of French debt.

• The next government’s most pressing task will be to pass a budget, the same challenge  Bayrou faced when he took office nine months ago.

• The root of the latest government collapse was Macron’s stunning decision to dissolve the National Assembly in June 2024, triggering a legislative election that the French leader hoped would strengthen the hand of his pro-European centrist alliance. 

• But the gamble backfired, producing a splintered legislature with no dominant political bloc in power for the first time in France’s modern republic.

• After Gabriel Attal’s departure as Prime Minister in September 2024, followed by former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier’s ouster by Parliament in December and Bayrou now gone, too, Macron again is hunting for a replacement to build consensus in the Parliament’s lower house that is stacked with opponents of the French leader.

• A lengthy period of political and fiscal uncertainty risks undermining Macron's influence in Europe at a time when the United States is talking tough on trade and security, and war is raging in Ukraine on Europe’s eastern flank.

• As President, Macron will continue to hold substantial powers over foreign policy and European affairs and remain the commander-in-chief of the nuclear-armed military. But domestically, the 47-year-old President’s ambitions are increasingly facing ruin.

French Parliament system

• The Constitution of the Fifth Republic, adopted in 1958, was amended by referendum in 1962 to establish the direct election of the President by universal suffrage. 

• This created a hybrid political regime with some presidential and some parliamentary characteristics, sometimes described as a ‘semi-presidential regime’ or a ‘hyper-presidential’ regime.

• The government is responsible to Parliament, but contrary to classical parliamentary regimes, the President plays an important role. 

• The Parliament is bicameral and is made up of the National Assembly and the Senate.

The Parliament has two houses:

i) The 348 French Senators are elected through indirect universal suffrage for six years.

ii) The National Assembly, with 577 deputies elected by direct universal suffrage for five years. 

• The indirectly elected Senate represents the ‘territorial communities of the Republic’ and shares legislative power with the National Assembly. It embodies continuity, as it cannot be dissolved and half of its Members are renewed every three years. However, in cases of disagreement, the National Assembly has the final say.

• The President appoints the Prime Minister, who proposes the members of government to the President, who then appoints them.

• The President chairs the Council of Ministers, enacts laws and is the head of the armed forces. The President can dissolve the National Assembly, and, in the event of serious crisis, exercise emergency powers

• Traditionally, the Prime Minister makes the government’s programme or a general policy statement an issue of a vote of confidence before the National Assembly.

• Legislative powers are exercised by the two houses, who vote on laws, monitor government action and assess public policy.