France's parliament – deadlocked for a year and more poisonously divided than it has been in decades – looks set to throw out yet another prime minister on Monday.
But the acute sense of drama surrounding this latest vote of confidence inside Paris's Assemblée Nationale is counterbalanced by a despondent consensus that the almost inevitable removal of 74-year-old François Bayrou, after nine relatively ineffectual months in office, will do nothing to break France's political stalemate.
It's a disaster. The situation is absolutely blocked, said veteran political commentator Bruno Cautrès.
Marine Le Pen, parliamentary leader of the hard-right National Rally party, accused Bayrou of committing political suicide.
The prime minister, a consensus-seeking figure from south-west France with a tendency to frown and to bluster, initiated Monday's surprise vote himself, seeking, as he explained it, to shock politicians into agreeing on a way to tackle the country's looming debt crisis.
Describing France's spiralling national debt as a terribly dangerous period… a time of hesitation and turmoil, Bayrou warned there was a high risk of disorder and chaos if parliament failed to back his austerity budget with its aim to slash government spending by €44bn (£38bn).
Bayrou says young people will be saddled with years of debt payments for the sake of the comfort of boomers, if France fails to tackle a national debt of 114% of its annual economic output.
But Bayrou's gamble – variously characterised as a kamikaze gesture, a pointless Cassandra-like prophecy, and an attempt to end his political career with a heroic act of self-sacrifice – looks almost certain to end in failure later on Monday.
Despite some frantic last-minute discussions, it appears clear Bayrou simply doesn't have the votes.
The heart of this crisis lies in President Emmanuel Macron's widely derided decision, in June 2024, to call a snap parliamentary election in order to clarify the balance of power in parliament, which resulted in a weakened minority centrist government stuck in an increasingly contentious parliament.
Far from the parliamentary power struggles on the left bank of Paris's River Seine, the mood across France appears to be drifting towards the right and the far right.
Recent polls indicate that the public increasingly leans towards National Rally’s Jordan Bardella, who advocates strong measures against immigration and promises a platform focused on national priorities.
In the face of this challenging political landscape, questions abound regarding the future direction of governance in France. Speculation rises on whether new elections might bring about change, but hurdles remain regarding the Macron administration's response to escalating public discontent.
