After catching everyone off guard on Monday, August 25, by calling for a vote of confidence in the Assemblée Nationale on September 8, French Prime Minister François Bayrou launched a whirlwind campaign on Tuesday in a bid to avoid the widely predicted collapse of his government. Determined to rally public opinion behind his €44 billion austerity plan, the prime minister sought to maximize pressure on the opposition parties that have vowed to topple him.
Bayrou is intensifying his efforts to get his message across. He gave an interview to the magazine L'Express, released a new video on his YouTube channel, was scheduled to appear on TF1's 8 pm news broadcast on Wednesday, appeared at the CFDT labor union's summer conferences on Tuesday and planned to do the same at the Medef employers' federation on Thursday. "We are in the midst of a battle, working to convince people so we can secure a majority on September 8," Economy Minister Eric Lombard said Tuesday on France Inter radio.
In the prime minister's framing, the aim of the confidence vote is first and foremost to seek validation of his assessment of France's public finances, a necessary precondition for any budget negotiations. The opposition, however, has seen the vote as a referendum on whether Bayrou should remain prime minister. Lawmakers had "13 days" to "decide whether they are siding with chaos or with responsibility," Bayrou said Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of the CFDT's event, after all the parties of the left and the far right had announced they would vote against the government.
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