The leader of the National Rally parliamentary faction, Marine Le Pen, has called on France’s new Prime Minister, François Bayrou, to take opposition opinions into account when drafting the 2025 budget.
We strongly urge him to do what his predecessor avoided: listen to the opposition to create a reasonable budget. Any policy that continues Macron’s course, twice rejected by voters, is doomed to fail, Le Pen stated on the platform X.
Earlier, party leader Jordan Bardella said that the National Rally does not yet plan to automatically propose a vote of no confidence in Bayrou. However, he emphasized that increasing taxes, denying compensation for medications, and refusing pension indexation remain the party’s “red lines.”
France is currently experiencing a political crisis after the government of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier was ousted on December 4 through a vote of no confidence initiated by the left-wing party Unbowed France.
The main reason for the vote was Barnier’s approval of the 2025 budget bill without parliamentary voting. The budget included stringent austerity measures, such as reducing public spending by €40 billion and increasing taxes by €20 billion.
Barnier aimed to use these measures to reduce France’s national debt, which has reached €3.228 trillion (112% of GDP), and to decrease the budget deficit from the projected 6.1% to 5% of GDP in 2025, with a further reduction to 3% by 2029. However, strong criticism from the opposition and the loss of parliamentary trust made Barnier’s government the shortest-lived in French history, lasting only 90 days.
