France is again experiencing political upheaval, and is now on the verge of a financial crisis after President Emmanuel Macron was forced to appoint his fifth prime minister in just two years.

Sebastien Lecornu will now have to try to formulate a budget that can pass through a bitterly divided parliament, a process that has claimed several of his predecessors, including the immediate past prime minister, Francois Bayrou, who was ousted by an unlikely coalition of far-right and left-wing lawmakers.

If Lecornu fails – which is likely, given how fractured and polarised French politics is – it is possible that France will have to go to another election. It was last year’s snap election gamble by Macron that produced a parliament that made France an almost ungovernable state.

Protesters of the “Block Everything” movement set fires while blocking highways across France early on Wednesday after the government collapsed over proposed budget cuts.Credit: AP

Bayrou was trying to take a small step towards stabilising France’s deteriorating finances, cutting spending in an effort to reduce the country’s budget deficit from an expected 5.4 per cent of GDP this year to 4.6 per cent. His budget included €44 billion ($78 billion) of spending cuts and tax increases.

Had he prevailed, that would have left France’s fiscal position still well above the European Union’s budget deficit limit of 3 per cent of GDP and compare badly with two of the traditionally less fiscally disciplined economies in the eurozone: Italy, where this year’s deficit is expected to be 3.3 per cent of GDP and contracting, and Greece, where there is expected to be a budget surplus.

France’s €3.35 trillion of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald