French government falls as Bayrou loses confidence vote

PARIS – Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government collapsed on Monday night after deputies rejected his confidence motion by 364 votes to 194.

The result prolongs France’s political crisis, making Bayrou the fourth prime minister in just over a year and, like his predecessor Michel Barnier, he was brought down over the budget. In a last-ditch appeal before the vote, Bayrou warned that “submission to debt is like submission by arms,” noting that France’s borrowings had reached €3.415 trillion.

Defying both the left and the far right, he reminded lawmakers they had the “power to topple the government” but not the power “to erase reality.”

But Socialist group chairman Boris Vallaud, in a scathing speech, denounced Bayrou’s “false promises and betrayals," declaring that “it is now for the