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France Descends Toward Another Government Collapse

2 1
09.09.2025

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the looming collapse of the French government, a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s surprise resignation.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a confidence vote on Monday by a vote of 194-364, plunging Paris into political turmoil and inciting new calls for snap elections. Bayrou is France’s fourth prime minister in less than two years and the second to be deposed in a no-confidence vote since 1962.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the looming collapse of the French government, a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s surprise resignation.

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French Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a confidence vote on Monday by a vote of 194-364, plunging Paris into political turmoil and inciting new calls for snap elections. Bayrou is France’s fourth prime minister in less than two years and the second to be deposed in a no-confidence vote since 1962.

Bayrou called for the vote over pressure to address Paris’s burgeoning debt crisis. “You have the power to bring down the government, but you do not have the power to erase reality,” Bayrou warned lawmakers ahead of the vote on Monday. “Reality will remain relentless: Expenses will continue to rise, and the burden of debt, already unbearable, will grow heavier and more costly.”

Last year, France’s budget deficit reached 5.8 percent of GDP—nearly double the European Union’s 3 percent limit—and public debt hit an astounding 113.9 percent of GDP. Bayrou has proposed a series of controversial austerity measures, including cutting around 44 billion euros (about $51 billion) from next year’s budget, to address this.

But opposition lawmakers on the right and left (holding 330 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly) rallied together to undermine Bayrou’s government. “Today is a day of relief for millions of French people, of relief over your departure,” Mathilde Panot of the hard-left France Unbowed party said, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen adding: “This moment marks the end of the agony of a phantom government.”

Bayrou will submit his resignation on Tuesday as French President Emmanuel Macron decides what to do next. Macron has three options: appoint another prime minister and hope that the fifth time’s the charm; call for snap parliamentary elections, which he has repeatedly ruled out; or

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