Three months after he was appointed prime minister by French President Emmanuel Macron, Michel Barnier and his government were toppled on Wednesday, December 4, after a majority of PMs voted fa no-confidence motion. The ousting of the Barnier government deepens the country's political crisis and presents Macron with the task of picking a viable successor with over two years of his presidential term left.

The Assemblée Nationale debated two motions of no confidence on Wednesday, one presented by the radical left and the other by the far right, in a standoff over next year's austerity budget, after the prime minister on Monday forced a social security financing bill through without a vote.

"The worst policy would be not to block such a budget," three-time far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said during the parliamentary debate, urging lawmakers to vote out the government and its "technocratic" choices.

Eric Coquerel, a radical-left MP, said the motion against Barnier sounded the "death knell of Emmanuel Macron's mandate." The French president was "today an obstacle, and in no way a solution. Today we are voting to censure your government, but more than anything else, we are sounding the death knell for a mandate: that of the president," he added.