Three months after appointment to position French Prime Minister Michel Barnier falls this Wednesday the victim of a vote of no confidence, supported by the left and the far right, which returns President Emmanuel Macronresponsibility for finding a way out of the political blockade in which France found itself.

Vote of censure received 331 votes for, significantly higher than the 288 required to remove an executive.

Macron will address the nation this Thursday in which he is expected to outline his plans.

Barnier, a former EU Brexit negotiator chosen last September for his deal-making talent, failed to include it in next year’s budget, making him the shortest French prime minister since World War II.

Ahead of the vote, Barnier, 73, warned of the risks the country faces in the event of political instability, but his call was not enough to change the sign of the vote of no confidence, the results of which have been announced since last Monday, when Far Right leader Marine Le Pen said negotiations had broken down .

Left MP Eric Cockerel: “The fall of Barnier should open the door to Macron’s resignation”

The left, a majority in the 193-seat chamber that has never been interlocutor with the government, presented a motion of no confidence that received the support of the far right, which has almost 140 deputies and received the most votes in the last legislative elections. . with 11 million votes.

Left-wing MP Eric Coquerel, who defended the proposal, reproached Barnier for the illegitimacy of his position, coming from a group that had barely 47 deputies in the last legislative elections, and assured that his fall should open the door to the president’s resignation.

Le Pen, who presented another parallel proposal that has not even been voted on since the left’s proposal won, saw Barnier as a “continuator” of the Macronism that had brought the country to a crisis, and called for a radical change of course.

While not demanding Macron’s resignation, the far-right leader did demand that he consider “whether he can continue to sacrifice the fate of the French for the sake of his pride and continue to confront the anger of the citizens.”

The leaders of the other parties followed them in their speeches. Barnier was criticized by socialists, communists and environmentalists, and his family defended him against the traditional right, the centrists and the macroronist Gabriel Attal, his predecessor in office.

The ball is in Macron’s court

Macron again finds himself in a difficult situation, as he was in July last year when, after postponing elections, he found the Assembly divided into three irreconcilable blocs, complicating the governance of the country and unable to hold new elections in a year under the constitutional mandate.

In the coming days you should find a figure capable of bring the country out of the blockade and adopt new budgets for next yearwhile its economy falters and France’s risk premium is comparable to Greece’s.

The Constitution does not establish a term for the appointment of a new executive body, while the current one can deal with current affairs in his post.

Macron has a busy agenda this weekend as he hosts several heads of state and United States President-elect Donald Trump for the opening of Notre Dame Cathedral, five and a half years after the fire that damaged it in 2019. .

France is entering a period of uncertainty in the face of a situation it has never faced before.

Only once did a vote of no confidence prevail in Georges Pompidou, in 1962, but then the National Assembly was dissolved, General de Gaulle won a landslide victory and reappointed his faithful squire as chief executive.

Now Macron’s hands are tied and he appears to have no clear tools to overcome the political crisis. (EFE)