How can the deadlock be broken? François Bayrou's ousting on Monday, September 8, following a vote of confidence in the Assemblée Nationale, unfolded in a toxic climate that boded poorly for what lay ahead, and triggered a new political crisis, just one year after the dissolution of the Assemblée. Watching live on TV, former prime minister Michel Barnier (who held the post from September to December 2024) witnessed his successor's downfall and sent him a text message of support. "I fear what lies ahead is more serious than chaos," Barnier wrote to Bayrou, after listening to his government policy statement, in which Bayrou warned of "chaos looming for France."

All eyes are now turned to Emmanuel Macron. After the successive failures of Barnier and then Bayrou, the French president finds himself without a political lightning rod as prime minister, at a moment of vulnerability marked by major political, budgetary and social crises.

Thirty minutes after the lawmakers' vote on Monday, the Elysée announced that the president would receive the prime minister on Tuesday to "accept the resignation of his government." He would name a successor "in the next few days," the statement cautiously added. Those close to the president are pushing for swift action, as demonstrators celebrated the Bayrou government's fall on Monday night outside town halls in cities across France, responding to a call from the "Block Everything" movement, which has urged the French to express their anger on September 10.

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