UPDATE September 8 20:25: The Elysée Palace released a statement following the vote saying French President Emmanuel Macron will accept the prime minister's resignation on Tuesday morning and announce a successor in the coming days. This indicates that the president will appoint a prime minister without dissolving parliament.
François Bayrou has been ousted as prime minister after losing a vote of confidence in an extraordinary parliamentary session tonight (September 8).
Mr Bayrou used article 49 of the constitution to call a politique générale and outline his plans for the upcoming months, asking MPs to back him in a vote of confidence.
He said urgent action was needed and France needed to deal with a ‘life-threatening’ debt crisis.
He reiterated his calls to save €44 billion in the planned upcoming 2026 budget, through measures including a freeze on public spending and cutting two days of public holidays from the French calendar. The budget is likely to be thrown out alongside his government.
In the vote, a total of 364 MPs voted against him, with 194 voting in his favour.
It means the sixth prime minister of President Emmanuel Macron’s tenureship has left the role.
He was the second in less than ten months to lose a vote of confidence, following Michel Barnier in December 2024, and the first prime minister of the Fifth Republic to lose a vote of confidence brought forward by themselves using article 49.
Questions are now being raised about what will happen in this unprecedented political climate, both in regards to the 2026 budget and the next prime minister.
Mr Macron is reportedly aiming to choose a new head of government quickly, and may choose to announce the next steps before the nationwide protests scheduled for September 10 through the bloquons tous movement.
However, he may also choose to wait until after Wednesday, to avoid scapegoating a new prime minister within the first 48 hours of their tenure.
Appointing a new prime minister is possible… but not easy
The first, most likely, but perhaps least appealing option to the public is that Mr Macron simply appoints a new prime minister in the coming days.
Despite a lack of a majority in the Assemblée nationale, the coalition of centrist groups and right-wing Les Républicains still have the largest grouping of MPs, with 210 in the group and 289 needed for control of the chamber via an absolute majority.
In contrast, the largest single party, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) have 123 seats, and the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire alliance has crumbled with the parties no longer working together in the chamber.
A candidate from either the centre or right could be chosen – various names have been floated, with just as many renouncing themselves from the position – although this new prime minister would face the same difficult situation as their two predecessors.
To alleviate this lack of majority, Mr Macron is reportedly open to working with the Socialists and appointing a candidate backed by the left-wing group, bringing together an ‘anti-extremist’ coalition of left, centre, and right parties.
The Socialists are open to this said leader Olivier Faure, but only if the planned 2026 budget is scrapped in favour of a Socialist Party alternative.
However, finding a prime minister that both the Socialists and Les Républicains can agree on – head of the right-wing group and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is reportedly against any candidate who can bring the parties together – may be harder than it seems.
Members of Mr Macron’s own party may cringe at working with the Socialists, who have continued to attack them from the left since the 2017 presidential election.
Appointing a new prime minister fails to deal with the underlying political issue in the chamber; that there are not enough MPs to form an absolute majority of any kind, and unwilling to work together to form a functioning government with their rivals.
New elections on the horizon?
The next option therefore is to call a new legislative election to return a new group of MPs to the Assemblée nationale, which could see the formation of new alliances and a majority party/coalition take the reins.
Legislative elections usually come a couple of months after the presidential elections, and follow a similar five-year cycle.
However, the 2024 legislative elections were called early after the elections in 2022 failed to return an absolute majority of MPs for the centrist bloc following Mr Macron’s re-election as president.
Calling a new set of elections could help forge new – likely temporary – political alliances between the groups, including seeing candidates ‘drop out’ of races to focus on certain areas.
In theory, a ‘Republican’ alliance of Socialists, Centrists, and right-wing Les Républicains could run on a shared ticket in a new round of legislative elections, with an aim of bringing temporary stability to the chamber.
This alliance would need to last until spring 2027, when the next presidential elections are to take place, and each group presumably looks to run their own candidate for the role.
Finding enough common ground, and deciding on who runs where, is easier said than done however, not to mention the ire it could provoke from other parties.
Otherwise, if no alliances are made, current polling suggests a victory for the far-right, all but forcing Mr Macron to choose a member of the RN as prime minister for the remainder of his term.
Far-right talisman Marine Le Pen has consistently called for new legislative elections in recent months.
It is worth noting that senior MPs of the centrist bloc and in the right-wing camp are against more legislative elections, preferring to attempt to work through the situation.
Once legislative elections are called, there is an enforced 12-month gap until they can be called again.
Could Macron resign?
Calls for Mr Macron’s resignation have echoed through the political sphere for several years, as opinion polls drop to historic low levels of popularity and support.
They are now being taken more seriously than ever, with many on both the left and right seeing the fall of Mr Bayrou as a sign of the failures of ‘Macronism’ and the president’s ailing power.
Unable to run for a third consecutive term, Mr Macron will not be on the ballot in 2027, so his longevity in the role is not threatened (although he could run for a non-consecutive term later on).
Bringing forward the presidential elections is one way out of the stalemate, then.
Mr Macron has reportedly said he will not resign, including following the 2024 legislative elections and the ousting of former prime minister Michel Barnier.
There are no indications he will take such a step following the toppling of his most recent prime minister.
The far-left La France Insoumise group will bring an impeachment process against the president on September 23, but this is unlikely to pass unless supported by the far-right and various other parties in the chamber.
Many of the protests and strikes in the coming weeks include criticisms of the president, with some calling for him to resign.
However, this has been the case for much of the president’s second term.
A constitutional change?
One potential option that is quietly being discussed is bringing ‘proportional representation’ in for the Assemblée nationale.
Currently, MPs are elected to represent their circonscription (constituency) on a first-past-the-post basis similar to in the UK, although the election is split into two rounds.
If no candidate wins at least 50% of the vote in the first round, those who receive above a certain threshold enter into a second round, with all other candidates eliminated.
The winner of this round becomes MP for the area.
This means that parties can perform well at elections even with a relatively small share of the votes, or parties with a strong showing nationally but consistently finishing second or third fail to win many seats.
A change towards the proportional representation system would see some or all MPs instead returned based on how much of the national vote their party receives in elections.
This could help end the political stalemate of the Assemblée nationale, which threatens to be increasingly common as more parties emerge across the political spectrum.
At the same time, such a change would require a constitutional amendment and unlikely to pass through the necessary legal steps for several months.
Former prime minister François Bayrou was in favour of a change to a proportional representational-style system, however no propositions have been made by the president on the matter.
