PARIS — In France, getting rid of governments is now about as commonplace as complaining about them. François Bayrou is bracing to become the latest prime minister to get the chop on Monday ― primarily because of discontent over his spending plans for next year ― leaving President Emmanuel Macron on the hunt for a fifth PM in less than two years. The political crisis could have ramifications far beyond the halls of power in Paris if lawmakers can’t figure out how to rein in runaway public spending and a massive budget deficit. Here’s everything you need to know about the drama ahead: HE’S DEFINITELY GOING, RIGHT? Yes, it’s pretty much nailed on that Bayrou will fall. Anything else would need a last-minute U-turn from a big chunk of opposition lawmakers, and that would be a massive shock. His fate seem sealed in the hours after he unveiled his plan for a confidence vote late last month, when leaders from the far-left France Unbowed, far-right National Rally and center-left Socialist Party all announced they would vote to bring down the government. Neither Bayrou’s PR blitz nor his meetings with political leaders last week appear to have moved the needle. SO WHAT’S HAPPENING MONDAY? Bayrou is delivering what’s known as a d´eclaration de politique générale (general policy statement), a speech traditionally given at the outset of a prime minister’s tenure to lay out an incoming government’s platform and priorities. (It’s a bit like a state of the union.) The longtime centrist is using this one to make the case for his unpopular 2026 budget. Prime ministers often follow their addresses with a confidence vote to ensure support for their agendas, though they aren’t constitutionally obliged to do so. Bayrou didn’t hold a vote after his January DPG, nor did any of his predecessors during Macron’s second term. Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA This time, he will. Bayrou has tried to frame the vote as a referendum on the need for drastic action to balance the books and has quibbled with the French media’s framing of Monday’s drama as a confidence vote or censure. But in practice, that’s what it is. HOW WILL THE DAY UNFOLD? Bayrou’s speech will begin at 3 p.m. in the National Assembly in Paris, France’s more-powerful lower house of parliament. Representatives from each political party will follow, with each of their speaking times determined by how many seats they have. Then the prime minister will have the opportunity to deliver closing remarks. Voting should take place around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and should last about 30 minutes, after which the president of the National Assembly will announce the results. Macron’s office has not yet said whether he will speak following the vote. When ex-Prime Minister Michel Barnier was toppled in December, Macron waited 24 hours to deliver a primetime address. HOW DID WE GET HERE? Let’s rewind to June 9, 2024, when the far-right National Rally scored a huge win in the European election. Macron responded by dissolving parliament, a massive bet that backfired in spectacular fashion. In the ensuing vote, an alliance of left-leaning political parties won more seats than any other political force, but fell short of an absolute majority. After nearly two months without a proper government, Macron’s centrists and the center-right conservatives agreed to form a minority coalition led by former Brexit negotiator Barnier. Barnier lasted three months, taken down in December over his plan to trim the 2025 budget to help rein in runaway public spending. Macron replaced Barnier with Bayrou, who in July presented a plan to squeeze next year’s budget by €43.8 billion to get the budget deficit down from a projected 5.4 percent of gross domestic product this year to 4.6 percent of GDP in 2026. Opposition lawmakers howled in fury at the plan, which included axing two public holidays. In late August, as the French started to trickle back from their summer vacations, Bayrou stunned the country by announcing that he would hold a confidence vote on his spending plans before what were expected to be tense negotiations. SHOULD I CARE? Yes, because the ensuing crisis in the eurozone’s second-biggest economy could drag the entire bloc into a debt-fueled financial crisis, according to Bayrou. France was able to stave off an economic catastrophe during the pandemic and when energy prices shot up at the outset of the full-scale war in Ukraine, in part thanks to massive public spending. Finding a consensus on reining in expenditures has proven difficult, and lawmakers are loath to tighten their belts as aggressively as Bayrou wants. His plan would bring France’s budget deficit down from a projected 5.6 percent of GDP this year to 4.6 percent in 2026. The ultimate goal is to bring that figure down to 3 percent, as required by EU rules, by 2029. Financial institutions and rating agencies have repeatedly warned of consequences should France fail to act, some of which are no longer hypothetical. Borrowing costs are rising, with the yield on France’s benchmark 10-year bonds ― a useful indicator of faith in a country’s finances ― drifting away from historically safe Germany’s yields and toward those of Italy, a country long synonymous with reckless spending and unsustainable debt.   Getting the French to tighten their belts has so far proven to be Mission Impossible, but the situation is not yet so dire that it’s time to call in the IMF. Bayrou, however, is betting his political future that history will prove him right.

PARIS — Marine Le Pen is primed to play a major role in toppling French Prime Minister François Bayrou on Monday — but he will, at least, leave his post untarnished by a futile attempt to strike political trade-offs with the far-right leader. That’s a lesson Bayrou learned from his predecessor, Michel Barnier. Facing exactly the same challenge of trying to force through a painful round of billions of euros of budgetary belt-tightening, Barnier tried to haggle with Le Pen. It ended in disaster, and he became the Fifth Republic’s shortest-lived prime minister when he departed in December last year. Bayrou, who still has his eye on a long-shot bid for the presidency, is essentially exiting on his own terms, while Barnier is still smarting from being humiliated by Le Pen. Le Pen sealed Barnier’s political execution over an elegant Italian lunch in early December with her telegenic protégé Jordan Bardella.   In something of a last-minute Hail Mary to save his trimmed-down social security budget package, Barnier agreed to backtrack on cuts to medical reimbursements, something Le Pen had demanded the previous day. He even put out a cringeworthy statement, spelling out that it was a concession to Le Pen. Le Pen said she would go off and think about it. Le Pen and Bardella decided to do that thinking at the chic white-tablecloth Marco Polo restaurant in Paris’ 6th arrondissement, a favorite haunt for politicians and actors near the French Senate.  The two sat inside the dimly lit interior accented by rich wood and scarlet velvet and weighed the options in front of them. They decided it was non.  After her meal, Le Pen phoned the prime minister back to say, “I’ve got good and bad news for you,” Barnier recounted in an interview with POLITICO.  She was — confusingly — dropping a demand she had never made, Barnier remembers. But she wanted more measures that he couldn’t stomach.   “I said: Stop, this is not serious … I’m not going to belittle myself,” he said.   FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS For Barnier, it was a brutal defeat. Two days later he was kicked to the curb by opposition lawmakers after failing to get them to agree on a plan to put France’s social security finances in order.  Bayrou is almost certain to suffer the same ignominy. But he seems to have spared himself weeks of fruitless negotiations. For Barnier, it was a brutal defeat. Two days later he was kicked to the curb by opposition lawmakers after failing to get them to agree on a plan to put France’s social security finances in order. | Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images “Barnier emerged tortured and weakened from his premiership,” said a government adviser, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “This way he [Bayrou] spares himself the damage that was visited on Barnier.”  Though Bayrou may leave holding his head a bit higher than Barnier, it appears he too miscalculated by gambling Le Pen would be easier to control after her embezzlement conviction saw her banned from running for political office.   Le Pen’s party isn’t stopping at Bayrou. Her National Rally party is calling on President Emmanuel Macron to resign and wants a vote of no-confidence against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.   It’s a far cry from the early days of Le Pen’s tenure at the helm of the National Rally, when she tried to remake the party’s image into one of a reasonable, respectable political force open to compromise that was ready to govern.  LE PEN’S PIVOT  During Barnier’s first weeks as prime minister, a path toward bringing the National Rally into the fold seemed both feasible and inevitable.  The surprise snap elections in 2024 ended with the National Rally holding a record number of seats, so ignoring them was impossible — especially considering that in naming Barnier prime minister, Macron had spurned the pan-left coalition that won the most seats in the contest, but fell short of an absolute majority.  Though Bayrou may leave holding his head a bit higher than Barnier, it appears he too miscalculated by gambling Le Pen would be easier to control after her embezzlement conviction saw her banned from running for political office. | Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA So Barnier began his tenure with a risky move: He told parliament that he would respect and engage with “all political forces,” effectively stepping over the invisible cordon sanitaire firewall that for years saw mainstream political parties band together against the far right.  For a long time, Barnier’s team thought the strategy was working. Le Pen’s trajectory, many thought, would follow the same path taken by Italian premier Giorgia Meloni from the post-fascist fringes of the right closer to the mainstream.  “We had a real relationship of confidence,” said one of Barnier’s advisers.  But the honeymoon in this marriage of convenience didn’t last long. There were soon disagreements about legislation and top jobs in parliament, according to insiders.  The Le Pen camp felt misled.  “Barnier assured them that they wouldn’t be despised, so National Rally lawmakers believed him — at first,” said a high-level conservative adviser who knows the National Rally well.  Le Pen sealed Barnier’s political execution over an elegant Italian lunch in early December with her telegenic protégé Jordan Bardella. | Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA But while Barnier said he would treat the National Rally like any other party, he kept them at arm’s length, meeting Le Pen only twice during his time as prime minister. His team “were afraid of being sullied” by the stain of working too closely with the far right, said the same adviser.  Barnier weathered the opprobrium of dealing with the National Rally, but never fully grasped the party’s ambitions after becoming the largest single opposition party in the National Assembly, one National Rally senior adviser said.  Everything changed on Nov. 13, with Le Pen on trial on charges of embezzling European Parliament funds, when French prosecutors called on the judges to immediately ban her from running for public office for five years if convicted. She was eventually found guilty and handed the sentence  “They needed something, a way to take vengeance,” said Antoine Vermorel-Marques, a conservative lawmaker and Barnier protégé. “Barnier suffered the blowback.”  LESSONS LEARNED  Whether Le Pen could have been convinced to go down the Meloni path with Barnier remains unclear.  Barnier never appeared to fully grasp the power dynamics within the National Rally, and at times it seemed the two sides could not bridge the apparent cultural or even class divides between them.   “There was no proximity with the National Rally,” said Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée, a former minister from the Barnier government. “Even with the Socialists we were closer.” She noted that the veteran conservative had friends and was on first-name terms with politicians across the aisle.   Could it have gone differently? Unlikely, say insiders.  Vermorel-Marques said Barnier emerged from the debacle saying Le Pen was simply “dangerous.” One former National Rally politician said Barnier suffered his fate because Macron “had it coming” after naming a prime minister from a party that won a relatively small fraction of seats in the 2024 snap election.   “Someone needed to take the fall, so I took the fall, but all of this is very far from the interests of the nation,” Barnier said himself.   He insists he has no regrets and has learned his lesson. But while Bayrou may not have stumbled across the same tripwire, it’s still Le Pen who looks set to push him out on Monday.

PARIS — Early signals suggest Prime Minister François Bayrou’s gamble to hold a confidence vote will bring down his fragile minority government next month, amplifying the crisis that President Emmanuel Macron faces in trying to run France. Bayrou on Monday effectively dared his opponents to topple him on Sept. 8 over the need to slash France’s massive budget deficit. Most appear willing to call his bluff. The far-left France Unbowed, which has long sought Bayrou’s head, quickly announced it would move to bring down the government. So too will the center-left Socialists, who have lost patience with the longtime centrist. Even Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, which had appeared to be waiting until budget negotiations began to wield the threat of ousting Bayrou, looks set to stick the knife in. Bayrou’s camp seemed to be taken aback by the far right’s decision. Someone close to the prime minister, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO they believed that Le Pen “wanted to let us do the dirty work” of balancing France’s books. Bayrou has survived several no-confidence motions since his appointment late last year thanks to abstentions from either the National Rally or the Socialists. With neither side now offering him a lifeline, Bayrou’s chances of survival have all but evaporated — unless he secures an improbable U-turn from his opponents.  If the Bayrou government falls, it’s up to Macron to make the next move. Here are his options, with their potential likelihood: APPOINT ANOTHER PRIME MINISTER Common ground in the National Assembly has proved elusive since snap elections in summer last year delivered a hung parliament comprised of three roughly equal blocs: a left-wing alliance, a marriage of convenience between centrists and conservatives; and the far right. Should Bayrou fall, he would be the second prime minister to be ousted since the election while trying to push through contentious spending plans. His predecessor, Michel Barnier, fell to a motion of no confidence just three months after being appointed. Appointing a third centrist or center-leaning prime minister may seem to meet Albert Einstein’s misattributed definition of insanity: doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. But Macron may have no choice if he wants to protect his legacy before French voters head to the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. One frequently discussed candidate is Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu. The 39-year-old is a close Macron ally and a former member of the conservative Les Républicains party — which has been a key coalition partner for both Bayrou and Barnier. He’s also seen an smooth political operator who could talk to the far right.   Macron could also turn toward some from the center-left to get the Socialists to join a government coalition. Former Socialist Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s name was brought up several times during past government transitions.   But the Socialists would likely ask for significant policy concessions from Macron and his allies such as increasing taxation, which the French president has vehemently opposed since his 2017 election, or reopening retirement reform talks. Deep divisions within the center-left force make it uncertain that all of its lawmakers would agree to back a coalition including their former rivals, especially with the presidential vote looking wide open. CALL NEW SNAP ELECTIONS Ever the political gambler, Macron could decide to roll the dice on another snap election to end the parliamentary gridlock. The problem, however, is dissolving parliament is exactly how French politics ended up in this mess in the first place. The political landscape hasn’t much changed since last summer, so elections could very well just deliver another hung parliament. Before Monday, Macron looked unlikely to send voters back to the polls. He has repeatedly, including as recently as last week, reiterated his wish for Bayrou to remain in office and for political leaders to work together. However, the chorus of critics calling for Macron to dissolve parliament is growing louder. Many think they can win, and it’s not inconceivable that one political force could snag an absolute majority. Socialist heavyweight Boris Vallaud said his party was preparing for Macron to call a new vote, and Le Pen wrote on X that “only a snap election will allow the French to choose their own destiny, one with the National Rally.” The longtime far-right icon’s statement was a bit surprising given that she is currently barred from standing in elections after being found guilty of embezzlement, a charge she denies and is appealing. RESIGN The chaos is fueling fresh calls from the political fringes for Macron to stand down —just as it did following the snap elections last summer. France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said his party would submit a long-shot parliamentary motion to remove Macron that seems doomed to fail. But veteran political commentators are broaching the subject and politicians are being quizzed on talk shows about whether they want Macron to go.   Macron has categorically denied he would ever consider an early exit. But France’s future hinges on the government’s ability to deliver a slimmed down 2026 budget to rein deficits and cut spending. Whatever happens next, it’s clear that the political chaos and dire state of France’s finances could easily morph into an explosive cocktail for the president. Anthony Lattier contributed to this report

PARIS — When Rachida Dati announced her plan to take on Michel Barnier for the right to represent a swath of Paris’ Left Bank in parliament, the French culture minister was sending a message to the former prime minister best summed up by “The Wire’s” Omar Little. “You come at the king, you best not miss.” Dati on Monday revealed she would run in the coveted by-election just as the nominating committee of their shared center-right party, Les Républicains, formally approved Barnier as its candidate. Dati had reportedly not submitted her paperwork to Les Républicains and now seems primed to run as a breakaway candidate. On Tuesday, she appeared to confirm on X she was running to represent “the region I have served for 15 years.” Dati, a fiery, outspoken figure, has long been a powerful politician in the district, which spans the length of the Seine from the Eiffel Tower to just beyond the Latin Quarter. She serves as local mayor of the Paris 7th arrondissement, where the Eiffel Tower is located. She was reportedly infuriated by Barnier’s decision to run for the seat on her home turf. “I’ve never been a bit player, or a pushover,” she said in an interview on French television last week. “I don’t give up and I’m not afraid.” Insiders had speculated that she never wanted to run in the by-election, but instead was kicking up a fuss to create leverage she could use to force the conservatives into supporting her candidacy in the Paris mayoral elections next year. Dati’s relationship with Les Républicains has been strained since she joined the centrist government of former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in early 2024.  The current face-off between Dati and Barnier is the latest in a series of running feuds within Les Républicains that have dogged the party since it was ousted from power in 2012. But with the country gearing up for a wide-open presidential election in 2027, party officials will be keen to not let the battle spiral out of control.   “If Dati runs in the legislative election, the constituency could be lost to the left,” feared a Les Républicains official, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal politics. An IFOP poll conducted last week showed Dati and Barnier splitting the conservative vote in the Paris district and running neck-and-neck with the left-wing candidate.   In a statement released on Monday, the conservative nominating committee tried to dial down tensions between the two, approving Barnier’s legislative bid while saluting Dati as “the best placed to represent change” in Paris. Barnier also tried to appease Dati, writing online that he had “no municipal ambitions.” Anthony Lattier and Victor Goury-Laffont contributed to this report.

PARIS — The European Union’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is considering running for France’s parliament in a by-election in Paris. Barnier, who has served four times as a government minister and twice as a European commissioner, may throw his hat in the ring after the election in 2024 of a candidate backed by President Emmanuel Macron was annulled over irregular campaign spending, one of Barnier’s advisers said, confirming reporting from Le Figaro. Despite setting a record as France’s shortest-serving prime minister last year, the 74-year-old Barnier has sought to stay involved in national politics with the publication of a book, “What I have learnt from you,” and is even hinting he might consider a presidential bid in 2027. Running is “an option,” said one of his advisers, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. Barnier “is taking his time to think before making a decision.” If Barnier does decide to go for it, he will likely be campaigning when Paris gears up for local elections next year that are expected to be hotly contested. Culture Minister Rachida Dati, a likely candidate, and Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad are calling for a joint candidate from the right and from Macron’s Renaissance party. Barnier’s candidacy as an MP for Paris would have broad support, argued the same adviser cited above. “Lots of people in the district, lots of elected officials from both sides of the political aisles are encouraging him to run,” the adviser said. Barnier’s government was toppled in a December confidence vote as far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to bring him down.