French Prime Minister Michel Barnier is expected to resign on Friday after far-right and leftist lawmakers voted to topple his government, plunging France into its second major political crisis in six months.
Barnier, a veteran politician who was formerly the European Union's Brexit negotiator, will be the shortest serving prime minister in modern French history. No French government had lost a confidence vote since Georges Pompidou's in 1962.
The hard left and far right punished Barnier for ramming an unpopular budget through an unruly hung parliament without a vote. The draft budget had sought 60 billion euros ($63.07 billion) in savings in a drive to shrink a gaping deficit.
Barnier's resignation will cap weeks of tensions over the budget, which Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally said was too harsh on working people. It also further weakens the standing of President Emmanuel Macron, who precipitated the current crisis with an ill-fated decision to call a snap election ahead of the summer Paris Olympics.
Macron faces growing calls to resign, but he has a mandate until 2027 and cannot be pushed out. Still, the long-running political debacle has left him a diminished figure.
France now risks ending the year without a stable government or a 2025 budget, although the constitution allows special measures that would avert a U.S.-style government shutdown.
France's political turmoil will further weaken a European Union already reeling from the implosion of Germany's coalition government, and weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Trump is due to visit Paris on Saturday for the unveiling of the renovated Notre Dame cathedral, and Macron wants to name a prime minister before then, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
France now faces a period of deep political uncertainty that is already unnerving investors in French sovereign bonds and stocks. Earlier this week, France's borrowing costs briefly exceeded those of Greece, generally considered far more risky.
Any new prime minister would face the same challenges as Barnier in getting bills, including the 2025 budget, adopted by a divided parliament. There can be no new parliamentary election before July.
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World leaders have welcomed a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. announced on Wednesday, following a tense day marked by threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to wipe out Iranian civilisation if a deal was not reached.
A train driver has died and several passengers have been injured after a high-speed train collided with an army lorry carrying military equipment at a level crossing in northern France on Tuesday morning (7 April), the local prefecture and railway operators said in separate statements.
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran's "whole civilisation" on Tuesday in a post on social media. Meanwhile, the UN failed to reach an agreemement on a resolution aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz, after China and Russia used their vetoes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has given an instruction for Israel to begin peace talks with Lebanon that would also include the disarming of Hezbollah.
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Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to continue dialogue and avoid steps that could worsen tensions after China-hosted talks in Urumqi, with Kabul and Beijing saying the meetings focused on easing differences and improving relations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said Türkiye aims to rank among the world’s top ten exporters of defence technology within the next two years.
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In a forceful rebuke to Washington’s foreign policy in the Americas, a senior Russian diplomat has declared that Moscow will never abandon Cuba, pledging ongoing support to help the Communist-run island overcome a severe energy crisis linked to the United States embargo.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping has told Taiwan opposition leader Cheng Li-wun that “people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese” and that the future of cross-strait ties should be decided by “the Chinese people themselves”.
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