By Ayo Kehinde
French Prime Minister François Bayrou was ousted on Monday after failing to secure a confidence vote in the National Assembly.
National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet announced the result, saying, “The National Assembly has not approved the prime minister’s general policy statement.”
It added that under the constitution, Bayrou must submit his government’s resignation to President Emmanuel Macron.
Bayrou lost the vote by 364 to 194, with opposition parties uniting against him. He is expected to tender his resignation to Macron early Tuesday.
The embattled prime minister, who spent just nine months in office, was the sixth to serve under Macron since the president was first elected in 2017.
Bayrou had called the confidence vote in a bid to break the impasse over his controversial austerity budget, unveiled in July, which proposed €44 billion in spending cuts over three years.
The plan included reductions to pensions and healthcare spending, sparking weeks of heated debate in Parliament and widespread public criticism.
His government aimed to cut the deficit to 4.6 percent of GDP by 2026, still above the European Union’s 3 percent threshold.
Bayrou’s ouster comes less than a year after the downfall of Michel Barnier’s short-lived government, which collapsed in December after losing a no-confidence vote triggered by his attempt to push a social security budget through the Assembly without a vote.
