( NBC )
The French government was toppled Wednesday after far-left and far-right lawmakers joined forces to pass a no-confidence measure against Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his Cabinet.
Barnier, a conservative who held the post of prime minister for barely three months, is now obliged to tender his resignation, and that of his government, to French President Emmanuel Macron.
It was the first time since 1962 that a French government was ousted like this. The move is expected to usher in a period of political uncertainty in the second-biggest economic power in the European Union.
Barnier’s foes in France’s lower house of Parliament needed 299 votes to oust him.
They got 331 after Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally joined with the leftist coalition in the chamber to oust the Barnier government.
“In a republic, only the people are sovereign,” Mathilde Panot, the leader of the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) parliamentary group, said after the vote.
Barnier, who was appointed by Macron in September, told French TV on Tuesday that it was “possible” he could survive. But as the votes were tallied, it quickly became clear that he was about to become the head of the shortest-lived government in French history.
Macron’s political future is also on the line.
Under the French system, Macron is responsible for appointing prime ministers to be approved by Parliament. But he cannot dissolve the legislative body again until next year.
While he could try to bring Barnier back in or appoint a successor or an apolitical government of technocrats, all would be vulnerable to dethroning by the far-right.
If Macron “cannot get a government together with the support of a majority in parliament, he is going out and going to come under increasing pressure to resign,” Douglas Webber, an emeritus professor at the INSEAD business school, based in Paris, told NBC News on Tuesday.
Macron was expected to make a televised address to his countrymen about the unraveling political situation on Thursday, The New York Times reported.
Barnier and his government are the latest casualties of the political instability roiling France and the rest of Europe.
Far-right populists and nationalists — many of them allies of President-elect Donald Trump — have been tapping into the widespread public discontent about rising post-pandemic prices and immigration to gain power.
It was disagreements over how to rein in the French government’s soaring budget deficit that did Barnier in.
After France spent billions during the pandemic, Barnier wanted to cut 40 billion euros ($42 billion) in spending and raise taxes by 20 billion euros.
But LePen said budget cuts and tax increases were “red lines” she would not cross.
“We said what were the nonnegotiable elements for us,” she said Monday. “We are straight in our political approach. We defend the French people.”
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