French Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Thursday was meeting Emmanuel Macron to submit his resignation after losing a vote of no confidence in parliament, with the president urgently seeking ways to halt growing political and financial chaos.
Poised to be contemporary France’s shortest-serving premier, Barnier arrived at the Elysee Palace just after 0900 GMT for the resignation formality, with the outgoing premier and government constitutionally obliged to step down after the defeat in parliament.
A majority of lawmakers on Wednesday supported the no-confidence vote proposed by the hard left and backed by the far right headed by Marine Le Pen.
Barnier’s record-quick ejection comes after snap parliamentary elections this summer, which resulted in a hung parliament with no political force able to form an overall majority and the far right holding the key to the government’s survival.
The trigger for Barnier’s ouster was his 2025 budget plan including austerity measures that were unacceptable to a majority in parliament, but that he argued were necessary to stabilise France’s finances.
On Monday he had forced through a social security financing bill without a vote.
The successful no-confidence motion cancelled the government’s entire financing plan, leading to an automatic renewal of the current budget into next year, unless any new government can somehow rush through approval of a new budget by Christmas — an unlikely scenario.
