The government of French centrist Prime Minister François Bayrou survived a no-confidence vote in the lower house of parliament, world agencies reported, BTA reported.
The vote took place a day after Bayrou presented his cabinet's program on Tuesday in the lower house of parliament - the National Assembly, and yesterday he presented it in the upper house - the Senate.
The no-confidence vote against the government was submitted by the radical left "France Unrestrained". The motion for a vote of no confidence in the Bayrou government was approved by 131 deputies, which is far from the 288 deputies needed to bring down a cabinet, notes Agence France-Presse.
This was the 150th vote of no confidence in a French government in the history of the Fifth French Republic since 1958, notes Agence France-Presse. The vote was submitted at a time when France still does not have a budget for the current year.
In the Socialist Party, after long discussions, the decision not to support the vote of no confidence was taken today by the party's national bureau. According to participants in the debates, they were quite stormy at the time. However, the Socialist Party does not rule out supporting another vote of no confidence in relation to the budget if its demands are not taken into account in it.
The Socialist Party remains in opposition, but is open to compromises, said party chairman Olivier Faure. In his keynote speech to both houses of parliament, Bayrou promised to review the pension reform and to reject the cuts of 4,000 jobs in the national education system.
Bayrou proposed a three-month deadline to develop a fairer pension plan to replace the controversial reform pushed by President Emmanuel Macron and sparked mass protests across the country in 2023. If the parties fail to reach an agreement on an alternative reform that does not require additional costs, the 2023 reform will remain in force, Bayrou said on January 14, quoted by DPA.
Today, in an attempt to attract the support of the Socialists, Bayrou made final concessions, confirming, for example, the retention of the project to introduce a tax on the country's highest incomes. The national coordinator of "France Insubordinate" Manuel Bombard predicted the fall of Bayrou's government, which he called an "unfortunate cabinet", as well as of President Emmanuel Macron, whom he called a "monarch". He also criticized the Socialists, describing as irresponsible the behavior of those who want to wait a few days or a few weeks to decide on the fate of the cabinet in a new vote of no confidence.
Bayrou avoided the fate of the conservative Michel Barnier, whose government was overthrown after less than three months, without being able to pass the draft budget for 2025 in parliament.
Now the priority of the centrist Bayrou will be the adoption of the Budget, and he will have to maneuver on this issue, but also on other issues in a lower house of parliament divided into three blocs, each of which does not have an absolute majority. Of these three blocs, the far-right "National Rally" decided not to join the no-confidence vote. The other two blocs are the centrists supporting Bayrou and the United Left, which split during the no-confidence vote. Bayrou, a Macron supporter, announced that the government would reduce the budget deficit to 5.4 percent of GDP this year, down from 6.1 percent, which is expected in 2024, according to preliminary estimates.