Legislators toppled France’s government in a confidence vote on Monday, a new crisis for Europe’s second-largest economy that obliges President Emmanuel Macron to search for a fourth prime minister in 12 months.

Prime Minister François Bayrou was ousted overwhelmingly in a 364-194 vote against him.

Bayrou paid the price for what appeared to be a staggering political miscalculation, gambling that lawmakers would back his view that France must slash public spending to rein in its debts.

Instead, they seized on the vote that Bayrou called to gang up against the 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Macron last December.

The demise of Bayrou’s short-lived minority government — now constitutionally obliged to submit its resignation after just under nine months in office — heralds renewed uncertainty and a risk of prolonged legislative deadlock for France as it wrestles with pressing challenges, including budget difficulties and, internationally, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the shifting priorities of U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a last-ditch effort to save his job before the vote, Bayrou warned that France is risking its future and its influence by racking up trillions in debts, pleading for belt-tightening.

Macron’s chosen replacement will operate in the same precarious environment and face the same pressing budget problems. Under the French political system, the prime minister is appointed by the president, accountable to the parliament and is in charge of implementing domestic policy, notably economic measures.

Macron himself has vowed to stay in office until the end of his term in 2027, but risks becoming a lame duck domestically if political paralysis continues.