Macron’s government collapses … again

马克龙政府再次崩溃……

Today in Focus

2025-09-10

22 分钟
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For the third time in a year a French prime minister has resigned and the president has had to swiftly choose a replacement. What’s behind the chaos? Angelique Chrisafis reports. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian. Today France plunges into crisis as the government collapses again.

  • On Monday, French lawmakers filed into the National Assembly in Paris.

  • The embattled Prime Minister Francois Beirut had called a confidence vote on his unpopular austerity budget,

  • and with it had rolled the dice on his own political future.

  • So there were raucous scenes in the French Parliament.

  • Francois Beirut took to the stands to make a long speech about how France was at risk of being submerged by a swamp of debt.

  • But he was heckled by opposition politicians.

  • He then said afterwards that he wouldn't reply to insults,

  • that he thought that this was a lamentable kind of image of violence and contempt in politics.

  • Beirut's gamble fails.

  • 194 against 354.

  • The budget was crushed and within hours he was gone,

  • the third French Prime Minister in a year to fall.

  • Francois Beirut has lost the confident vote in the National Assembly and will now need to tender his resignation.

  • Outside town halls across the country, protesters staged mock goodbye drinks.

  • waving signs, reading bye-bye Beirut and popping open bottles of wine.

  • And today there's more.

  • A national day of action will see strikes,

  • universities shut down and roads blockaded across the country in what could be a fresh wave of mass protests for France.

  • For Emmanuel Macron, it's another storm in a turbulent few years.