French PM says ‘fate of France’ at stake in confidence vote

French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou. Photo / Alain Jocard, AFP

French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou says the destiny of France was at stake in a forthcoming confidence vote, which he called to resolve a budget standoff but is expected to lose.

The September 8 vote in Parliament will not decide “the fate of the prime minister” but “the fate of France”, Bayrou said, during an interview with four news channels on Sunday.

The Prime Minister stunned France by saying he would request the vote in a divided Parliament, as he tries to garner enough support for his minority Government’s plan to slash spending – even as opposition parties say they will not back him.

“I think that the days ahead are crucial,” the 74-year-old Prime Minister said in the interview with franceinfo, LCI, BFMTV and Cnews.

“If you think that I can give up the battles that I fight, that I am fighting here, that I have been fighting for years and that I will continue to fight in the future, you are mistaken.”

Earlier on Sunday, Socialist leader Olivier Faure said the party’s decision to vote against Bayrou’s Government was final.

“The only thing I’m waiting for him to do now is to say goodbye,” Faure said, referring to the Prime Minister.

Bayrou has said sacrifices must be made to ensure France’s future and bring down the country’s debt.

He said he wanted to save about €44 billion ($87b) with measures that include reducing the number of holidays and placing a freeze on spending increases.

But the measures have proved deeply unpopular, with seven out of 10 French people saying they want Bayrou to lose the confidence vote, according to a recent poll.

Bayrou’s gamble has raised fears that France risks a new period of political and financial instability.

Speaking earlier on Sunday, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin called on political forces to find a compromise, saying he was concerned that the legacy of the Fifth Republic’s founding father Charles De Gaulle was at risk.

“General De Gaulle’s institutions are at stake if we fall back into the instability of the Fourth Republic, where governments came and went, where the authority of the state was not guaranteed, where the administration had no leader,” Darmanin said in a speech.

-Agence France-Presse