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Europe|France’s Government Has Collapsed. What Comes Next?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/world/europe/france-government-what-next.html
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President Emmanuel Macron is expected to appoint a new prime minister, rejecting calls for elections or his resignation.
Sept. 9, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
What will President Emmanuel Macron do now?
That question is back on everybody’s lips in France this week after the government lost a confidence vote in the National Assembly, the country’s lower house of Parliament, forcing the prime minister, François Bayrou, and his cabinet to resign.
Mr. Bayrou, a centrist ally of Mr. Macron, had unexpectedly called the vote last month. He hoped to force lawmakers’ hands as he tried to push through cost-cutting measures meant to address France’s ballooning debt. But his bid failed.
The collapse of the government now leaves Mr. Macron with an assortment of imperfect, even unpalatable, options. Each holds its own challenge.
The presidency is in many ways France’s most powerful political office. But prime ministers and their cabinets, who answer to the National Assembly, are formally in charge of domestic policy, including the budget.
Here’s what you need to know about what Mr. Macron could do:
A new government
The quickest solution, and the one Mr. Macron favors, is to appoint a new prime minister and form a new cabinet. His office said after Monday’s vote that he would pick someone “in the next few days.”
But the question will be whether a new government could fare any better than the two that have fallen since the president called snap parliamentary elections last year.
