French Prime Minister François Bayrou, who is fighting to keep his job in a budget standoff with the opposition, should "say goodbye," Socialist leader Olivier Faure said on Sunday, August 31. The centrist prime minister stunned France this week saying he would request a vote of confidence in a divided parliament on September 8, as he tries to garner enough support for his plan to slash spending.
Bayrou is expected to give a television interview on Sunday evening in a new push to grasp a future for himself and his minority government, even if polls find public opinion stacked against him.
Socialist leader Faure said that the party's decision to vote against Bayrou's government on September 8 was final. "The decision we have made is irrevocable," he told broadcaster BFMTV. "The only thing I'm waiting for him to do now is to say goodbye," Faure said, referring to the prime minister.
Faure also urged President Emmanuel Macron to appoint a left-wing prime minister in line with the results of last summer's snap polls, when an alliance of leftist parties won the most seats but fell short of an absolute majority.
From Monday, Bayrou, 74, hopes to hold negotiations with the opposition on the condition that parties commit to savings measures to reduce France's debt. While Macron has backed Bayrou, opposition parties from the far-right to the radical left say they will not support Bayrou's austerity budget.
Bayrou said he wanted to save about €44 billion with measures that include reducing the number of holidays and placing a freeze on spending increases. The measures have proved deeply unpopular, and trade unions have called for protests in September. Seven out of 10 French people want Bayrou to lose the confidence vote, according to an Elabe poll conducted for BFMTV.
Bayrou's gamble has raised fears that France risks a new period of prolonged political and financial instability. Macron gambled on snap polls last summer in a bid to head off the far-right and bolster his authority, but the move left a deadlocked parliament. Macron later acknowledged that his decision to call snap elections backfired.
But he has pointed out that the French parliament reflects the political divisions among the French public, and urged politicians to find a way to work together, pointing to Germany as an example.