PARIS — The president of the far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, strongly indicated on Tuesday that his party would not vote to topple French Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government as it faces series of no-confidence votes in the coming days.
Bayrou is expected put his job on the line four times this week by using Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, which allows the government to enact legislation without a vote, but in turn gives lawmakers the ability to put forward no-confidence motions. Bayrou has already triggered the measure twice to pass parts of the budget for 2025, and a vote on the first no-confidence motion is expected Wednesday.
In an interview on radio station Europe 1, Bardella said the National Rally would announce its final decision the morning of the vote but hinted that the far-right powerhouse would not bring down Bayrou’s budget as “uncertainty needs to be avoided.” However, Bardella criticized Bayrou’s spending plans, which include €53 billion worth of tax hikes and spending cuts aimed at bringing down France’s massive budget deficit.
“This is an extremely bad budget,” the 29-year-old said.
The National Rally faces a strategic dilemma: While a slim majority of its voters favor ousting Bayrou, according to a Jan. 31 poll from Harris Interactive, center-right voters — which the far right is courting as part of its push to bring the party into the mainstream — strongly oppose it.
Bardella described the no-confidence vote as an institutional “nuclear weapon,” though his party voted for one in December to bring down Bayrou’s predecessor, Michel Barnier. However, Bardella claimed that this time around, torpedoing the government would have “heavier consequences.”
Barring any last-minute changes of heart, Bayrou may very well survive his week on a high wire. The Socialist party, whose support Bayrou’s government has been courting for weeks, announced Monday that it would not vote for a no-confidence motion linked to the budget.
But Bayrou isn’t out of the woods just yet.
The Socialists said they plan to put forward their own proposal to censure the government over what they believe is Bayrou’s refusal to uphold “republican values” — a shot at the prime minister for saying last week that it felt like parts of France are being “flooded” by immigrants.
While the National Rally is unlikely to vote for a measure criticizing Bayrou’s anti-immigration rhetoric, the party isn’t ruling it out on principle. The National Rally would have no qualms about voting for a no-confidence based on an argument it disagrees with, someone close to its longtime standard-bearer Marine Le Pen, granted anonymity to speak candidly about party strategy, told POLITICO.
The motion of no confidence it voted on that toppled the previous government, for example, contained language directly attacking the far right.
The Socialists say they are ready to live with the risk that their motion could topple the government.
“If our motion passes, the government will fall, but we will have ensured the existence of a budget beforehand,” Socialist party chief Olivier Faure told Libération.
Sarah Paillou contributed to this report.
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