French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is expected to kick off a series of talks with France’s political parties on Monday, as his government faces an imminent collapse in a confidence vote next week.
Opposition parties have said they will bring down the minority government in the September 8 vote, which Bayrou unexpectedly announced last week.
In this regard, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned that any risk of a government falling in the euro zone was a concern.
The head of the opposition Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, said on Sunday that the decision to vote against Bayrou was “definitive”.
Faure added that he considered Bayrou untrustworthy and that his party would meet him this week purely out of respect for the country’s institutions.
The National Rally (RN) also made clear it would vote against him, as did the France Unbowed party, the Greens and Communists.
The parties that have said they will vote against Bayrou together have enough votes to trigger the fall of the government.
In parallel, French unions are set to stage protests on September 18 against the government’s fiscal plans.
A separate series of protests and strikes has been called for on social media for September 10 by various groups. That call has drawn comparisons to the ‘Yellow Vest’ protests that erupted in 2018 over fuel price hikes and the high cost of living.
