France heads for political crisis as PM risks all on confidence vote

France is on the brink of another political crisis, after Prime Minister François Bayrou's shock decision to submit his government to a vote of confidence in parliament.

The chances of his winning the vote in a special session of the National Assembly on September 8 being extremely slim, the prime minister's days in office look numbered.

If the vote is lost, Bayrou will be expected to resign, leaving France once again rudderless at a time of immense economic, social and geopolitical uncertainty.

For the second time inside a year, the disastrous effects of President Emmanuel Macron's hasty parliamentary dissolution of July 2024 threaten institutional chaos and even civil unrest.

Far from offering the "clarity" that Macron wanted after his defeat in European polls in June 2024, the newly elected National Assembly was split three ways between centrists, the populist right, and the left – meaning that no government of any stripe could hope for a majority.

Macron himself was cut out of domestic politics and forced to focus on international affairs.

The first post-dissolution prime minister, Michel Barnier, struggled on until December, but then was brought down when the opposition parties combined against his budget.

And now exactly the same thing seems about to happen to his replacement.