By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
PARIS (Worthy News) – French President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation on Thursday after the government lost a no-confidence vote, Worthy News learned.
Michel Barnier, 73, became France’s shortest-serving prime minister since the 1958 founding of the Fifth Republic, its current republican system of government.
He was ousted when the far-right opposition National Rally of Marine Le Pen joined leftist parties to bring down the government.
The vote was sparked by Barnier’s decision to use a constitutional mechanism called Article 49.3, which enables legislation to be adopted without a vote but opens the door to no-confidence motions.
He made the move after a last-minute concession was insufficient to win support from the influential far-right National Rally (RN) for his budget plans.
Yet the development risked further unsettling investors, who have already pushed up France’s borrowing costs beyond those of countries like Spain and Greece.
France now has a caretaker government, and President Macron must appoint a new prime minister who, analysts say, faces the same political turmoil and divided parliament as Barnier.
BARNIER BACK?
In theory, Macron could reappoint Barnier, who had been in power since September.
Yet Barnier did appear to rule himself out on Tuesday evening. “I want to serve,” he told media. “But what does it mean if I fall tomorrow and the day after you find me back here as if nothing had happened?”
Bernard Cazeneuve, 61, a former French prime minister and interior minister under Socialist President Francois Hollande, is among those being named as possible successors.
Already considered a possible prime minister this summer, observers say picking him could help Macron fracture the left-wing bloc by capitalizing on Cazeneuve’s ties to his former party.
Sébastien Lecornu, 38, is also mentioned. He is seen as a skilled politician who, in 2022, became the youngest defense minister since the French Revolution. “He’s a Macron loyalist who’s originally from the center-right Republicans party,” commented Bloomberg News agency.
Additionally, François Bayrou, 73, a veteran centrist leading the MoDem party and a key ally for Macron in parliament, is viewed as a possible prime minister. Currently the high commissioner for government planning, Bayrou supports proportional representation in parliamentary elections, which the National Rally has also requested.
Jean Castex, 59, a former prime minister under Macron known for his southern French accent and management skills, is another potential contender for the prime minister’s job. He heads the RATP, the state-owned company operating the Paris metro.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Australian authorities have charged a Russian-Australian man with foreign interference after he allegedly infiltrated Ukraine’s armed forces to obtain military information for people he believed were linked to Russian intelligence.
A young Christian man was recovering from extensive injuries Saturday after he was allegedly attacked by a group of Muslims for intervening when Christian women were being harassed in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Christian representatives said.
Sudanese Christians and their supporters used the United Nations’ annual “International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief” on Saturday to condemn what they called a growing wave of killings, abductions and attacks against Christians in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains.
Mossad chief Roman Gofman reportedly met Sunday with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in a U.S.-mediated effort to calm rising tensions after Israel’s recent airstrike on the Abu al-Duhur airbase in northern Syria.
Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday temporarily allowed the Trump administration to continue construction on President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, pausing a lower court order that would have halted much of the project while the legal fight continues.
The death toll from a Russian drone strike on a crowded shopping center in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown rose to at least 16 Sunday, as Kyiv pleaded for more air-defense interceptors and France promised additional missiles amid mounting concerns that the conflict is increasingly affecting security across Europe.
Iran’s president has urged an end to the war with the United States in a daring pushback against Islamic hardliners who want to continue the armed conflict, which has also left minority Christians suffering in prisons and elsewhere.